Whitlock
by KaiaLuna
Summary: Alice doesn't abandon Bella, instead they and Jasper become inseparable, a family… then comes Jasper's other family… Peter. Of course there is also Charlotte and what about the Cullen's? Then there is Maria and the Volturi, werewolves, shifters and human parents. Come with Bella as she finds herself, her family, her mate and her future.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey all. This is a Bella and Peter story I've had tucked away for a while. This chapter was beta'd by Alexandra Belle. **

**First a couple points to my readers, since I've been MIA for a while...**

**In regards to Luna Rising… I'm trying, I swear it's cursed, every time I get back to writing it something happens to derail things, the story isn't abandoned though. I love Alpha's Mate and Luna Rising and for me the story isn't finished, I can't even write another Sam x Bella f****ic.  
**

**I've had several requests for a sequel to Fated to Broken Love as well and I've toyed with a few ideas but that story was a Bella x Paul and for me their story is finished. I have a little future glimpse one off I thought of posting but it doesn't feel right for me so I am still toying with the idea of a possible sequel. **

**I've also had a request for a Jacob x Bella and I do have an idea floating in my head so hopefully that will be up soon. For now I'm going through all my half finished archives or ideas I was toying with over the writing hiatus I've recently taken so a few new things should be up over the next few weeks.**

**Thanks to all my loyal readers back with me and to any new ones, I hope this doesn't disappoint, I'm not convinced it's up to the standards of some of my better stories but I like it enough to post it so I hope you all enjoy...**

When I had tripped, I curled into a ball, unable to move, my muscles locked in shock. He was gone. Edward had left me. Cold arms wrapped around me and my heart nearly burst out of my chest as I turned around. Could it be?

"I'm so sorry Bella." Alice lifted me off the ground and into her lap with ease, holding me against her petite frame. I sobbed into her neck, the loss of Edward tearing at my heart, "Why?"

She rubbed my back gently, "He's an idiot. He didn't mean any of the things he said Bella and I'll never forgive him for saying them, for hurting you like this."

"Why Alice?"

"He thinks he's too dangerous, that we all are but… oh honey, let's get you home and warm." I didn't know I was shivering against her too-cold body until she lifted me and carried me through the woods.

Charlie wasn't home yet. Thankfully, he'd never have to know I'd been lost in the woods, he wouldn't have to worry. I cursed when I thought about it; he would have been out of his mind if I had just disappeared on him.

Settled on the couch with hot chocolate and blankets, Alice explained Edward's decision, his reasoning and his plea with the family.

"So why are you still here?" I asked her, wiping at the tears that still lingered on my cheeks.

"I saw that he decided to hurt you so that you'd let him go. That idiot. I couldn't just abandon you Bella, we're best friends and best friends don't do that."

I leaned over and hugged her thankful that I still had her. Alice stayed with me all night, rubbing my back and humming gently to help me drift into sleep.

Alice ended up staying with me all week. She was the one to explain to Charlie about the breakup and the family moving. I wasn't sure exactly what she told Charlie to convince him as to why she was the only one left, but it had something to do with finishing school here and already being eighteen. Whatever it was, Charlie bought it and offered her to stay with us or me with her as often as we wanted.

When the next Sunday rolled around Alice went home, she explained to Charlie that Jasper was taking classes at the college in Port Angeles so she wasn't entirely alone at home. I knew she missed him but I was sorry to see her go and made her promise at least a hundred times that she wouldn't just up and leave. She picked me up to go to school in the morning and I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was almost a full week before she dragged Jasper over. It was after school on Thursday and I'd gone out with Angela as Alice insisted I ask her to the diner, it turned out she had a huge fight with Ben and since she was such a good friend to me, I was glad I was there for her. When I got home, I made dinner, Charlie ate and then ran off back to the station; he was working the late shift. Alice showed up ten minutes later, Jasper in tow. I let them in and he stood behind her, avoiding looking at me.

"Jasper?" I questioned hesitantly.

"I'm sorry Bella." He finally looked at me and the pain in his eyes was heart wrenching. Slowly, I walked forward but his bright gold eyes just watched me, not darkening at all as I moved towards his body and hugged his granite frame. After a second, his arms came around me, hugging me very gently back as I let my arms tighten around him and my mind flood with all my Jasper related thoughts and feelings, from the days in the hotel where he was keeping me sane and calm, telling me I was worth it, to all the times he gave me a boost of calm or confidence. We didn't get to spend much time together and I knew there was a pretty big part of him that wanted my blood, but he was my friend and I cared about him, not just as Alice's husband but as the man who had so often over this last year, brought me peace and confidence.

When I pulled away he smiled at me and sent me a wave of gratitude and affection.

I grinned at him, "No more apologizing for being a vampire, okay? I know what you are and that you kinda want to eat me but I trust you Jasper and I think you and Ali are worth the risk, ok?"

He gave me a crooked smile, "Ok, just try not to bleed too much around me and we should be good."

I held up two fingers as I'd seen scouts do, "Scouts' honor, I will try my best not to bleed on you, near you or around you."

He chuckled and Alice pulled us both further into the house with a wide grin, "Don't worry, I don't see him killing you, in fact, we are all going to be the best of friends!"

I laughed and Jasper chuckled as we let her, okay, he let her (because no way could I stop her) drag us into the living room.

After that day we spent a lot of time together and I finally got to know Jasper Hale. He was sarcastically funny with a dry wit. As the months passed we fell into a routine, Alice and I went to school together, I would study with Angela after school sometimes but mostly I'd spend the afternoons with Jasper and Alice, they'd hunt or do couple things while I slept. Before I knew it, graduation had come. Jasper sat with my dad as they both cheered for Alice and I as we walked across the stage. I went to dinner for a private father daughter celebration and then met up with Alice and Jasper at the Cullen house.

By November, it had stopped being painful to be there. I missed Edward, I missed all the Cullens, but while I was hurt that they had left without a goodbye, I was also a little angry at Edward for leaving me the way he did. I could only imagine what would have happened if Alice and Jazz had disappeared from my life too. Not only because they were the best friends I ever had, but also because Victoria had come after me for revenge.

Jasper had taken care of her though and after he saved me, killing yet another sadistic being on my behalf, he told me his story. I loved and respected him all the more for what he'd overcome. Watching him and Alice together, knowing their stories, I came to see the love Edward and I had wasn't real. Well, it was real, but not the right kind of love. It was a selfish love that was not meant to last forever. I tried to be everything Edward wanted me to be, to live up to what I and he saw as perfection. Looking back, I could only see his flaws and all the ways we didn't fit together, not the way Alice and Jazz did, so seamlessly and perfectly, so different from each other yet relaxed and happy in just being themselves, imperfections and all.

***** Please review!*****

**And the formal disclaimer, for this chapter and all following...**

**I don't own Twilight or any of its characters or story lines, this is written for my own (and your) enjoyment, I do not make money on it.**


	2. Chapter 2

The morning after graduation, the three of us loaded into the truck Jasper had bought for our road trip. Alice handed me the scrapbook I had only partially helped make while I stretched out in the back. Jasper turned up the tunes and we were off. We had decided to take the Oregon Trail east until we hit Chicago from there we started going south again on our way to New Orleans where I'd fly to Jacksonville. The two of them were going on to Biloxi Mississippi, and Alice's past but we would meet up ten days later in New York, the plan was to spend three days there and then it was North to Boston for a couple days before driving to our new home in Bar Harbor, Maine. First we were driving south to Cannon Beach, Oregon to spend an hour at the beach, then it was to Portland for the night. Alice and I had mixed the trip with historical sights, oddities and shopping so it would take us a few weeks to make it.

Surprisingly there were only a few nights booked at nice hotels here and there, mostly I was going to sleep in the truck while Jasper or Alice drove with a stop at a campsite or two along the way, though I couldn't picture Alice camping. We listened to music and sometimes talked having a blast, luckily it was summer so Jasper could leave the windows down without me freezing but over this last year he seemed to have built a tolerance to my smell. He joked about still wanting to snack on me sometimes but for the most part it didn't bother him anymore. He swore his tolerance in general was getting better because of our friendship, and he felt more comfortable around humans, I was happy I was helping him a little because I hated him suffering just because I was around but I had a feeling it also had to do with his only having to feel his own and Ali's blood lust and not a whole coven. Regardless of the reasons I couldn't have been happier because Jasper had become the best friend I could ever have, Ali didn't count because she was my sister at this point.

We shopped and played and laughed our way across the country, doing silly things for no reason, like dancing in a field of flowers in the rain or swimming in a pool under a random waterfall, buying cheap souvenirs and expensive clothes, dressing up in fun costumes to go to the diners for me to eat. Alice favored a shoulder length vibrant pink wig with super skinny black jeans, a black vest and six inch pink sandals. This outfit was accompanied by me in a dark ripped jean skirt, black tank and multi colored four-inch wedges with a waist length wavy purple wig. In the city Alice dressed us all up in fancy clothes and high shoes, I consented to wedges as I could walk in them after a few tries besides, Jasper was there to hang onto. People stared more than the small town diner folk with us in our wigs, mostly because Jasper looked so pimp in his fedora and ripped jeans with Ali and I on each arm. For once I didn't mind eyes on me, but it had a lot to do with the confidence Jasper projected. Half way through the trip I didn't even need his boosts anymore. I stopped thinking around them and just let myself be, even if I knew it was something totally dorky like reading Harry Potter for the hundredth time or getting excited over small things. Alice took the cake on that one after all. They would tease me but never actually make fun of me and over the year I had grown more sure of myself, asserting the things I wanted or didn't want. The trip somehow grew that tenfold and I had never been more confident, at ease or happy.

In New Orleans we parted ways at the airport and I hugged them both. Alice said something had come up and we would meet in New York in two weeks instead of ten days, I knew it would be good to spend extra time with my mom but I would miss them.

All the changes I had started to notice about myself were noticed big time by my mom. She loved all of them, including my crazy wig. We cheered like crazy for Phil, even at practice and spent hours laying out at the beach until even my pale complexion was just a few shades lighter than golden.

I hugged her tightly when it was time to leave and I fingered the silver cuff on my wrist, my mother had bought it while we were out wandering some shops, on it was engraved a Dr. Seuss quote, 'Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.' I missed her already.

By the time the plane was landing in New York City though, all I could feel was excitement to see Jasper and Alice again. Alice had said they'd drive in, arriving with enough time to hunt, park and meet me at the luggage carousel so I hurried off the plane.

When I saw them my foot steps faltered for a second as I saw a third vampire standing behind Jasper, he was several inches taller than Jasper, at least six two and reminded me of a mix between Jensen Ackles, a la Supernaturals yummy Dean Winchester and Chris Hemsworth sexy, broad shouldered and shaggy haired.

I continued my hurried steps and hugged Alice tightly before hugging Jasper and turning to the their friend.

"Hi."

"Bella this is Jasper's brother."

"Peter." I smiled at him and nodded. "Jasper's mentioned you."

"We met up with him in New Orleans and he's decided to come with us to New York." Alice explained tugging me away from the carousel my bag would arrive at.

"Um, Alice." I looked back.

"They'll get it, you should eat." She led me away to a table.

"So Peter." I had noted the in door sunglasses.

"He wont ever hurt you, I promise." She whispered before we sat across from each other.

"How about any friends I make?" I hinted.

Alice shook her head, "Not unless they tried to hurt you, badly."

"Alice."

She sighed and nodded, "It doesn't make him a bad person."

"I know."

She smiled at me, "So you're ok with it?"

"With what?" I hesitated.

"I can already see." She bounced grinning. "Since you've decided."

"Decided what?"

"Peter's going to come live with us."

"He's what?"

"You've decided to give him a chance Bella, I knew you wouldn't be afraid of him but I wasn't sure if you'd decide you better avoid him or get to know him while we were all here. I can see that you are going to agree about him moving in with us because you know it will be good for Jasper and I'll convince you it will be good for Peter because you'll feel bad he's all alone and not been doing so great."

"He's not?"

She shook her head, "So it's decided."

I laughed but shook my head at her, "I guess it is." I agreed.

The boys joined us just as I was finishing, "Bag is in the truck, you ready?" Jasper asked us.

"Yup." I nodded.

Alice jumped up and grabbed my arm, "I still have so much to tell you, I mean about Biloxi and my family and my past. It was awful but amazing." She tugged me away while Jasper pulled out his wallet and tossed a few bills on the table. I'd have protested but all my money had been handed over at the start of the trip, Jasper handling all our finances, it helped Alice had made me invest last year in a company and I'd tripled my savings. I was determined to live off my own earnings and she was determined I'd never have to worry about mooching off their fortune by building me one of my own.

We settled in the back of the truck, Jasper and Peter in the front. Three days in New York meant three days at the W hotel in Manhattan, two days shopping, one sightseeing, one night at the theater and one at a nightclub. The third night we packed up and drove on to Boston. We only spent two days in Boston since it was sunny before driving up to our new home.

We'd gotten a five-bedroom house that was pretty run down on twenty-three acres of forest. The plan was to renovate it into our own special home. Alice said they'd done it before over the years when they'd been apart from the Cullen's and as a family alike. It made for the best places. So when we arrived we took a day to go over the place and make several plans then gutted it entirely. I was actually glad to have the third vampire around for all the manual labor. By fall the house was finished. It had hard wood floors everywhere, a giant porch, incredible views and was soundproof, mostly since soundproofing wasn't entirely effective with vampires. It had a kitchen, living room on the main floor and upstairs it had three bedrooms and then an attic which Peter took as his room. Alice and Jasper took one bedroom and I took another, the third became our library/den. All the rooms, including the attic had bathrooms as well as a powder room on the main floor. It was open and light but cozy and lived in. Not at all what I expected from Alice with its oversized furniture, natural woods, warm tones and eclectic unmatching but somehow coordinated and put together feel. but there were touches of all of us everywhere. I guess that's what it was, it had some of Jasper's country, some of Alice's girly modern and expensive and some of my comfortable, easy and traditional style blended together and somehow, like our friendship it just worked, blending beautifully.

Now that the house was done life was quiet and simple. I had decided to take time away from school so Alice decided to open her own little boutique, despite my lack of interest in clothes, I decided it would be a good job for me, I'd worked at Newton's after all and had known even less about camping and sporting goods.

Jasper and Peter fixed the store up, to accommodate our varying interests Alice had strayed away from clothes, surprising me again. We sold accessories, jewelry we made ourselves, scarves, hats and belts. While the store was renovated in the day, at night, the boys built a small barn type shed behind the house which I realized was a studio for Alice and I to make our creations. We added leather and wood made stuff that Jasper and Peter created, bracelets, journals, bookmarks and other things.

By my birthday we were opening. To celebrate my nineteenth, because Alice insisted and I insisted in not having any type of party, glass or paper products, the four of us drove to Boston and went dancing.

By October everything had settled into a routine again but Peter was still an enigma. He spent all his time, that I was around, in his attic or out with Jasper. I think in the three months I'd known him, he might have spoken three words to me.

It was Halloween and we were decorating the house and Alice and I dressing up so that we could watch every possible scary movie. When I fell asleep, I knew Alice and Jasper would leave to hunt and have alone time, as they usually did while I slept. So, when I woke up, to a dark and silent house, from a nightmare, with a shadow standing over me with bright red eyes, I screamed and jumped a foot in the air.

Seconds later a light was on and Peter was frowning at me, "Should I get Alice?"

I had a hand against my racing heart as I shook my head, "Just a nightmare." He nodded, standing there staring at me silently. "I'm fine, really." He just nodded again, not moving. "Are you just going to stand there?"

"Should I leave?"

I thought about it a second and shook my head, "No, you are way scarier than any crazed Chainsaw butchery dude." He frowned tilting his head and I rolled my eyes, "You'd make the psychotic stalker killers flee."

"The ones from the movies."

I nodded sitting more comfortably, "I always hated scary movies."

"Why watch them?"

I shrugged, "Because I love to."

He frowned at me, "That makes no sense."

"I'm living with two vegetarian and one human drinking vampire, one of the vegetarians accidentally tried to eat me once and actually wanted to kill me before he really knew me because I could pose a threat and I already have a scar from one of two sadistic nomads who decided on hunting me, what about me makes sense to you?"

He chuckled, "True." Then he frowned, "Two sadistic nomads?"

"James and Victoria." I nodded.

"The Major told me about James and that." He nodded to my wrist.

"Victoria was his mate, she came after me for revenge. Jasper killed her." Peter nodded. "Why do you always call him that?" I asked after a moment.

"It's who he is." Peter shrugged.

"His name is Jasper." Peter nodded. "Did you have a title?" At his frown I clarified, "Jasper was the Major, it was his title or nickname, who were you?"

"The Major was Necrophor, and I was his Captain, they called me his Grim Reaper."

"Necrophor?"

"The Bringer of Death." I nodded slowly, and after a second he quietly added, "In life, I was a Captain in the Texas Rangers, they called me Fox Shot."

"Fox Shot?"

"I could shoot a moving target from a galloping horse and had the best mind strategically. Shooting ain't help much to Maria but my mind and my gift sure as shit helped the Major. We made a good team."

"You have a gift?"

Peter nodded, "I know shit."

"Know shit?"

"Not like Pixie do, I don't see the future, sometimes I just know things, like I'm remembering somethin only it ain't happened yet or I get a feelin somethin is good or bad."

I nodded at him and we sat, well I sat, he was still standing across the room, and looked at each other for a while.

"Got any feelings about psycho stalkers or serial killers in the area?"

"No but if one shows up I could eat again."

I snorted and then giggled, "Right. Guess its safe to sleep then." He just nodded. "Peter?" I got a lifted brow in response and rolled my eyes, "You don't like me much do you?"

"You're fine."

"Are you?" He looked surprised at that but just shrugged. "What have you been doing since you and Jasper left Maria? Have you been alone all these years?"

He frowned at me, "I was with Charlotte a good decade."

"Charlotte?"

"Major didn't mention her?" I shook my head and bit my lip, trying to force myself not to ask. "She's the reason I left Maria."

"Really?" I couldn't help the curiosity burning in me.

"Thought Jasper told you about me?"

"He said he turned you and you got him out of that life. You're brothers. He talks highly of you but hasn't said much really. I didn't know you were a Texas Ranger even or around when he turned you, he just said you were with him for most of his time with her."

Peter nodded and moved to a chair and sat, "I was only with the Rangers for a few years, I joined the day after I turned eighteen and Jasper turned me little after I turned twenty-two back in 1879. Wasn't until 1937 he changed Charlotte, fell in love with her and when her time to be culled came I stood between her and the Major. He let us leave. I came back for him a few months later, Char was to scared to come back so I left her waitin but I couldn't leave him, not when I knew there was more than war and death out there. Spent a good eight years together, then Char and I was fightin more than lovin and I learned she ain't really love me in the start, just hopin to survive. I know she came to love me but not like I loved her and I felt betrayed, told her if she didn't want forever with me to just go. Three months later and she went. Major and I spent a good year travellin but I wanted to be on my own and he was strugglin with his gift, we decided time to ourselves would be good, this was late 1947, he met the Pixie that next year and they went to the Cullen's. I been to stay with them for short visits but I ain't like the others, I don't make them so comfortable, more often he and Ali came to stay with me some. Met a few nomads over the decades. I seen Char once or twice since, last time she was mated and livin in Europe, happy. Mostly I suppose I've been alone."

"She broke your heart." I whispered without thinking.

Peter just nodded and we fell silent, eventually I drifted off to sleep.

I didn't have any more nightmares that night, instead I dreamed of a very beautiful vampire manipulating Peter into loving her so she could save her own neck, making him square off against his own brother to protect her.


	3. Chapter 3

November and December were cold and when I wasn't at work I was at home with the others. Peter still said very little, Halloween was the longest I'd heard him talk but he and Jasper spent a lot of time off on their own so maybe he used up his verbal quotient each day then. That sounded mean and exaggerated even in my own head. Peter was just reserved and he said more than most with just a few words. In the evenings we'd all play games, cards or scrabble, Pictionary, whatever Alice came up with or we'd watch movies. Weekends Alice and I might shop or walk the beach if it were cloudy or we'd all hike in the woods. Little by little I came to know Jasper's quiet brother very well. He had flashes of Emmett's humor but a lot of Jasper's dry wit, he was intelligent, read a lot and the leather works he crafted were beautiful. I didn't know that much about him exactly, just what he'd told me Halloween, but I felt like I knew him.

As I packed up to spend Christmas with Charlie and New Year with Renee I also wrapped up the gifts I'd gotten my Whitlock family. Jasper had taken back his name for the move, Peter was his brother and Alice his girlfriend but she and I were also known as Whitlock's in the town. I learned this while doing my Christmas shopping and I was able to overhear the not so subtle whispers further down the aisle.

"She's a Whitlock Keith, leave her be."

"What's a Whitlock?"

"They stick to themselves." The girl whispered back.

"The brothers share everything, even their wives." A second girl added her voice dripping spite.

"Yeah and those dudes are scary." A younger guy admitted making Keith shove him lightly as he rolled his eyes.

"Baby." Keith teased.

"Not kidding cuz." The younger one persisted, "You don't want to mess with them or their girls."

"Who are they anyways?" A third girl asked.

"They have that cute little accessory boutique. Mom says they moved into some place outside of town last summer."

"She doesn't have a ring." Keith smiled.

"Wife, girlfriend, what difference does it make."

"Relax Lydia. I'm just going to talk to her, maybe she's lonely."

"Yeah, maybe they stick to themselves because you lot are oh so welcoming." The third girl added.

"You haven't seen their guys." The younger guy snorted.

"Don't be such a shit Mark, come on."

"Maybe she's nice?" The first speaker shrugged.

I set the camera back on the shelf as they came up.

"Hi." The third girl spoke first.

"Hello." I nodded politely at them.

"I'm Annie, this is my brother Keith and our cousins Hannah and Mark and our friend Lydia."

"Bella." I sent her a small smile.

"Finishing your Christmas shopping?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Almost done." She smiled brightly back at me, "Keith and I live in Boston, we just came up to have Christmas with family." I nodded.

"Want to get some lunch with us?" Keith stepped closer to me with a flirtatious smile.

"No." His voice made even me jump as he appeared around the corner of the aisle.

"Peter?" It was part greeting and part question. He just walked closer and put his hand on the small of my back.

All of his attention was on me, "Ready to go?"

I sighed but nodded and let him lead me away giving a small wave to the others and called, "Nice meeting you." I let him lead me out of the store, "Peter?" I questioned again after we'd left.

"I got a feelin." He shrugged.

"About some college kids?"

"Bout you." He opened the truck door and held out his hand to help me in. One thing I had noticed, despite his gruff demeanor, Peter was a gentleman. I let him help me in the truck and quickly, well quick for human appearances, he was in the drivers seat. He turned on my seat warmer and pointed the truck out of town.

"So much for my Christmas shopping." I sighed.

I frowned as Peter made a turn and then drove us back to town, "I'll just take you then." He parked and while I was still staring at the drivers seat in astonishment, he opened my door and lifted me out.

I went into the few shops I wanted to, his hand on the small of my back the entire time. We passed the same group of college kids sitting in a café an hour later but Peter ignored them as he led me to the front and ordered my mocha. Another hour and I was completely done all my shopping and silently thanking the fates that be, I'd already gotten him something.

Peter stowed my bags in the back seat and we were off home.

"So what was the feeling?"

Peter just shrugged, "Just that I should find ya."

"Have you ever gotten a feeling about me before?"

"Halloween." He shrugged, "I was going huntin in Boston and had a feelin I should turn around. You were tossin with a nightmare when I got back."

"You didn't eat?" I remembered his eyes being vibrant that night.

"Grabbed a vagrant near death in Portland."

"So you get feelings about things as small as nightmares?" I had thought it would only be big things.

Peter shrugged, "Not really."

"Ok."

The rest of the ride was quiet but as usual with him, it was a comfortable quiet. So I sat thinking about the whispers, the town was speculating about the Whitlock relationships and whispering torrid rumors about us. No doubt Alice had already heard many with her superior senses. A fact she confirmed when we got home.

"People always speculate Bella, there are always rumors no matter where we go, but as long as they are stupid things like dating foster siblings or sharing boyfriends, we don't bother much about what they think."

"Right." I'd agreed with her and then told her to vacate so I could pack.

"I've already seen your presents though Bella." She whined.

I rolled my eyes, "Fine." My packing and wrapping were done much faster with her help anyways and I had already wrapped hers.

"I love it by the way." She hugged me as she flitted out of my room to put her, Jasper and Peter's packages under the tree for me. I laughed at her and went to get ready for bed.

The holidays were wonderful but I missed Alice and Jasper just as much as I'd expected, surprisingly I also really missed Peter. My dreams since Halloween had all been about the shadowy seductress, manipulating him to love her or him as a human Texas Ranger. Now there were more, I dreamt of his half smile, his chuckle, his dry wit and his dirty minded humor. I imagined what he'd look like shirtless… naked. Oh those were some good dreams.

I was still a virgin. A nineteen-year-old virgin and I clearly needed to make a life outside my vampire family. I especially needed these dreams to stop before going home and babbling embarrassing things in my sleep or moaning his name.

Portland was only three hours away so I decided that I'd take a couple classes at the local college this semester, to help me learn the books for the store better and hopefully meet some human friends.

The first few times I went, Alice came with me so she could shop and everything was great. January passed easily though the drive was really long. I met a few people and even ran into Keith and his sister Annie. I liked them both a lot, Keith reminded me a little of Mike Newton in his flirting though he was a little more aggressive and less puppy eyed. Mostly he backed off when I told him to though.

It was early February when it all went bad. Peter showed up as I was leaving a café with Keith and his friend Scott.

"Peter?" I questioned with a smile.

He just walked up and wrapped an arm around my waist guiding me away.

"Hey dude!" Scott protested.

"Back off." Peter warned them.

"No." Keith puffed up his chest. "She doesn't have to go with you."

"Guys, it's fine." I held up my hands at them, "Peter's just here to pick me up."

They eyed him suspiciously while he glared back, much more impressively so I took his arm and tugged him away, "Another feeling?" I asked with an eye roll.

Peter just nodded and opened the passenger side door.

Half an hour into the drive I was positive something was really wrong. "Peter?" He turned to look at me as he drove. "What's the feeling?"

"Ali says Char's comin."

"Char? As in the bit… your ex?"

Peter chuckled, "The bitch who broke my heart?" He filled in while I blushed. "Yeah, she and her mate are human drinkers and while she used to follow my way I'm not so sure now and he don't."

"So he just… kills people?"

"He's a wolf and you're a rabbit." He supplied.

I swallowed and played with the necklace Alice had made me for Christmas. "I can take him out easily enough, let alone the Major. You don't have to worry."

"If I don't have to worry why'd you come get me?"

"Just a feelin."

"Right." I sighed.

That feeling seemed to strike Peter every time I left the house that week. I could only imagine how much worse it was about to get when they arrived. Oddly, I didn't mind, I liked having his quiet presence listening to soft country on the long drive, walking just a little closer than only a friend might with his hand always on the small of my back or sitting near me reading as I studied.

They came in the early pre-dawn. Living with vampires I kept odd hours, living with Alice meant I was up and prepared for the visitors.

I was surprised when they came Peter adjusted where I stood beside, positioning me behind him, standing stoic and angry. I figured it was Charlotte, it couldn't be easy for him to see her with her mate after thinking she was his, it wouldn't be easy for me to see Edward with someone else. I put my hand on the small of his back in comfort.

They arrived, hand in hand, running up to the porch steps, followed by two other women. "Alice, Major." Charlotte smiled at them. Finally I had a face to the evil seductress. She was beautiful, as expected, with long blond hair and vibrant red eyes, her mate had black hair and the same red eyes, he was shorter than Jasper and not as broad as Peter, more of a boy than a man. "Peter." I stepped closer to his back when she said his name, having felt him tense. Her mates eyes hadn't left me at all.

"Char." Jasper nodded at her, "It's good to see you."

"The welcome seems a bit cold." She pouted prettily.

"We wanted there to be no confusion." He informed her, "Bella is one of mine, she is not to be harmed in any way."

"The human?" Her mate questioned.

Peter growled at him and he lifted his hands, "I'd hardly make a move against you Captain, let alone the Major."

"Of course you wouldn't, neither of us would. If she's your pet, we'll leave her be." Charlotte offered consolingly.

"She's not our pet, she's our family." Alice corrected.

"Humans claim dogs as family, you claim a human, what is it to us." One of the women with them spoke. Peter growled at her while Alice lifted her nose. They all shivered and I was sure Jasper had sent them a dose of something unpleasant.

"Bella is a Whitlock, she is to be treated with respect or you will not be welcome."

"You'd welcome a human over your daughter?" The previously silent woman spoke.

Jasper didn't respond, Charlotte's mates growl was warning enough for her as she bowed her head, while he spoke "No harm will come to any of yours from my coven Major, human or vampire. You have my word."

Jasper nodded and tensions seemed to ease as Charlotte let go of her mate's hand and hugged Jasper. She turned to Peter and I clutched the back of his shirt subconsciously.

"Peter." She took half a step forward as though to hug him. He just nodded at her and turned, herding me into the house. He was my constant shadow, not only when they were around but even in Portland. I think he even sat in the corner of my room reading all night as he sat outside the door for my classes leaning back with his eyes closed, listening to the lecture or for me I didn't know.

I'd been sort of starting to maybe date a guy named Luke before this all started but Peter scared him off pretty quick. As the days passed, I didn't want to be at home because of Charlotte and her coven and I didn't want to go out because what was the point when I had been doing it to get away from the to sexy for his own good Texas Ranger. I mean, vampires should be perfect and pretty like Charlotte's mate Zach or like Edward, not rough and tumble with a permanent five o'clock shadow, shaggy hair and a square jaw. Not even Jasper exuded the raw masculine oh so sexy power of Peter and Jasper could kick his butt when they sparred.

When he finally did let me go back to going to classes in Portland alone, about a week after the others had arrived, I was miserable. I didn't care about the few friends I'd made, I cared that he was home with Chloe and Cassandra. Still, I was staying in Portland more, not because I wanted to be with 'human' friends or to study but because it drove me mad to see Chloe panting after Peter. I refused to admit I was heartbroken and jealous that they were having sex, that he'd stopped the constant shadowing of me, day and night, to be with her.

I decided it would be better for me to stay with Annie in Portland until after my exams so I moved into her little apartment with her. I even made myself go on a few dates and lost my virginity to Keith. I missed them all and went back to visit a couple times but felt like a guest in my own home so after the second weekend I made excuses not to return, namely, it was vampire private time and the drive was becoming to much for me every week. Ali came to see me often though I really missed Jasper and Peter.

When my exams finished in May I was both happy and depressed to be going home. Depressed because the 'visitors' were still there and Peter was still screwing the little slut vampire girl.


	4. Chapter 4

Alice had driven out to get me after my last exam, helping me pack up everything that belonged to me, I laughed as she lifted the couch to find an abandoned hair tie, "Ali?"

"Just making sure you don't forget anything and have to come back." She shrugged.

"For an old hair tie?"

She shrugged, and looked away as she whispered, "I missed you."

"You're here every week." I remind her gently, moving to take her petite hand in mine.

"I just don't like you so far away from us." She admitted.

"Aren't I supposed to be the one afraid of abandonment?"

Alice gives me a sad smile, "Jasper and I agreed to let you make your own choices, he and Peter argued about it, about leaving you here alone, I saw it would be ok, that you would be ok." She rolls her eyes, "Peter's weird knowing gift wasn't even going freaky it was just him, he's not used to caring about anyone but Jasper, Char and I and you're just so breakable I think it scares him. It scares us all sometimes but Jasper and I agreed."

"Agreed what?" I frowned at her trying to understand just what it was she was admitting to me.

"To let you live your life, to not use our gifts to make decisions for you. We always watch out for you, none of us can help that but unless its bad, we agreed, you had to live your life, make your own decisions and mistakes. This wasn't a bad decision, well nothing bad was going to happen to you, I just didn't like it, we didn't like you not with us. Jasper didn't like that you wouldn't talk to him. You were unhappy and he could feel it but you didn't want to talk to us."

"Ali?"

She looks at me with venom coated eyes, "When I visit everything is the same between us but you don't come home, Jasper stays to keep an eye on Charlotte's new coven but he misses you and you barely call. It's your distancing yourself from us, slowly, ever since they arrived its been different you hide from us, you left us."

"I'm sorry Ali, I just, I felt…"

"Sad, Jasper said you felt sad and sometime angry, mostly at Charlotte and then bitter but mostly sad."

"I felt human Ali, I felt like a human, living with vampires."

"You were always a human living with vampires." She reminds me with a frown.

I chuckle though I can feel tears burning behind my eyes, "I never felt like it though, it was just, you were just Ali and Jazz and ok so in the beginning Peter felt like a vampire but now or before they came he was just Pete."

"Then they came and we became vampires again?" She asks and I can tell she's a little confused.

I nod, "They came and I didn't fit, I don't fit in your family."

"Of course you do." She protests, "Charlotte and I, we don't have much in common but she's lovely, her mate is sweet and gentle. Cassandra and Chloe are a bit, distant, but they aren't as bitchy as they can come off. Chloe even likes shopping and I know you'd be friends with Cassie if you got to know her, you two like lots of the same things and she met that Jane Austen lady you like to read."

I lick my lips, "I'll try Ali, they're your family and I'll try, I know didn't really give them a chance, I promise I'll try."

"So you haven't changed your mind? You don't want to leave us? Live a fully human life."

"No." I throw myself across the inches separating our bodies to hug her as tightly as I can, "We're sisters Ali, I love you."

"I love you too Bella and we're trying, even when we don't like it, we're trying not to interfere to much, to let you make your own choices, to come to us to talk about how you feel or what you want to do and not try to influence you, to control you, even when we don't like what you decide."

After a few moments we pull apart and I take the hair tie from her and toss it on the coffee table, "If I forget something small, we'll just get a new one ok? I'm not looking for reasons to distance myself, you and Jasper, you're my family and no one is leaving anyone. Ok?"

She smiles and nods and hugs me again, "Can we go home now then? Jasper was acting like a maniac and projecting so much excitement and worry when I left I think the whole town is on edge."

I laugh with her and nod grabbing one of my two bags and leaving her with the heavier one, "Let's go, you have no idea I missed him."

Alice speeds the whole way back and Jasper is on the porch waiting when we park. I jump out but he's used vampire speed and is hugging me just a little to tight before I've registered he's off the porch. I hug him back, "I missed you." I know the words are unnecessary, he can feel how happy I am to see him and I can feel him projecting how happy he is I'm home.

"Welcome home." He whispers setting me on my feet.

I grin at him, "Don't worry Jasper, classes don't start again until September."

At his stricken look I feel almost bad for teasing him but I chuckle and shake my head and hug him again, "Can't you feel I'm only teasing?" I whisper.

"We'll always support what you want Bella, you can go to any school you want, do anything you want. I'll make it happen." He tells me seriously.

"I'm not leaving you again." I lean back to look in his eyes, "I miss you guys too much."

"Us to Bella." He hugs grins at me, "Let's get you settled in your room and something to eat. Peter and I went to the store for you so you have everything you need, we got all the stuff you like and Peter took Charlotte and her coven out to Boston to hunt so it could just be us three tonight."

I felt a twinge of hurt, jealousy and sadness but pushed it away. I knew Jasper felt it under the relief and happiness at being home and with him and Ali again but he didn't ask. Since Alice had mentioned it, I had noticed he didn't press me to talk to him about what he knew I was feeling. Jasper had always been so easy to talk to but he waited for me to go to him, he never tried to influence how I felt or what I wanted to do about how I felt. Sure he'd sent me emotions, a boost of confidence or a wave of joy, he shared them with me not forced them on me. Except the calm, if I had a nightmare or the one time I was sick with the flu, or even a couple times I had cramps, he'd push waves of calm, comfort or peace at me but usually he just let me feel what I was feeling and didn't demand to know why. I knew their gifts could take over my life but unlike how Edward had always tried to 'protect' me in controlling ways, they never did.

A wave of love and appreciation filled me as I took his arm in mine. "I love you Jazz." I told him because for the first time I understood, sometimes he wanted me to say how I felt, to acknowledge them, so he knew I wanted him to know how I felt.

He sent me a wave of love in return, "I missed you." He tells me again as Ali walks up and takes my other arm and though I don't like the idea of Peter off with the bitch that broke his heart or the slutty vampire skank, I am glad for the night alone with my sister and brother.

When I wake mid morning the others are back and I smile at Peter, I want to hug him but fight the urge, we've never really hugged before.

He smiles at me and nods before disappearing upstairs. I greet the others with a nod and hello. Only Charlotte acknowledges me back with a small smile and nod, and her mate who also smiles and responds with a quiet hello.

I go to make my coffee but Alice has already done it so I pour a cup and grab some fruit for breakfast, "I'm going out to the studio." I tell the empty room, knowing all the vampires in the house can hear me.

I work for several hours, glad to be back at it, the creative outlet was fulfilling in a way I'd never have expected before Ali and I opened our shop. I could pour every emotion I had ever had, every memory every lost hope or new hope and make beautiful things.

When I was finishing a necklace and deciding if it was time to take a break and eat I saw sparkling from the corner of my eye. Chloe was prancing out of the woods with a satisfied smirk, her dress ripped, hair mussed and feet bare, Peter followed a little behind and I could see he was shirtless, she wasn't in a ripped dress she was in his shirt. My stomach flipped and I hated the feeling in my gut as I turned back to my work. I'd ruined the piece in my distraction. I forgot about lunch as I began to work furiously on new pieces, trying to push down the emotions in my gut but when my hands started to shake and eyes blur with tears I through them into the work instead. When I looked up a couple hours later, Jasper was sitting in the corner and I knew part of the peace I was feeling wasn't just having purged the emotions but was in part from him.

"I'm sorry darlin." He shrugged.

"No." I shake my head and smile at him, "Thank you."

"Want to talk about it?" He offers gently.

I shake my head but give him a small smile, "It's nothing Jazz." I see a wave of hurt that I know he hasn't meant me to and I shake my head at him, "I just," I wave around the room, "This is therapy, I get to let out all the bad things I feel, that I don't know how to talk about, I don't understand what or why I feel but I just, I'd talk to you if I could" I shake my head, "I just, don't know what to say or how to explain. I'm ok though, I promise and thank you." I smile at him, "For helping."

He nods and gives me a half smile, "Anytime." I know we're ok as he sends me a wave of affection and turns to leave while I turn back to tidy up my work space before following him into the house to eat.

As the days passed I fell back into old patterns easily enough, working in the studio or at the shop. I still felt like a guest in my own home and stuck to my room or went into town a lot. It felt like I missed my 'family' almost as much as when I'd been in Portland, maybe even more because even though they were right there, and I knew they loved me, they felt far away, it felt like I was losing them to the world they belonged in and I, as a human didn't. They were vampires and Whitlocks, even Charlotte and I wasn't, I was just the human… pet but how long until they got tired of it like Edward had?

I threw my emotions into my work but I knew Jasper felt my them, I knew he wanted me to talk to him about it, to comfort me but he wouldn't unless I went to him and I didn't know how. They seemed to be trying to give me space to work through how I was feeling and what I wanted but as I took the space and moved away from them I felt more and more lonely and like I didn't belong.

I'd been home for a month and though I'd told Alice I wouldn't leave them again, part of me was thinking I should, I didn't belong here with them and wasn't it time we all stopped pretending I did?

I sat on the beach watching the waves and contemplating my life and where I really belonged. I'd never felt I belonged in the human world, I'd never really fit but did I fit in the vampire one? A rabbit living with wolves. I had people I loved about in both worlds but Jasper and Ali and yes Peter, were the ones I wanted to share my life with, to not let go of. I'd already started to let go of my parents growing into my own woman and living my own life far from them and I had no human friends I loved like I loved my vampire family, no one I would hurt over losing contact with as I had every other friend I had made in the human world in my life. Could I live out my life like this though? Could they live out my life like this? No one had brought up my change but would they consider it? I'd be one of them, part of their family for real, forever but did they want that? Did they want me to ask or was it a no go topic like it had always been with Edward? If it was an option wouldn't they have at least brought it up as one?

"Are you alright?" Charlotte surprised me as I sat there, looking out unseeing over the waves.

"Fine." I shrugged, startled a little as I looked around me.

"I'm sorry if we've made you feel uncomfortable. Peter says you used to spend much more time with them."

I shrugged, "They, we've, all been busy."

"Would you like us to leave?"

YES! The voice in my head screamed even as I shook my head, "I'm sorry if I made you feel unwelcome."

Charlotte chuckled, "Here I thought it was us who made you feel unwelcome."

"I never felt like a bunny living with wolves before is all." I blushed not having meant to say that.

Charlotte chuckled, "No? I suppose we are a bit less inclined to pretend the way they do, living so freely amid our prey."

"Right."

"Please, let us start again?" She suggested, "Now that you've finished school and come back to live, perhaps we can all get to know each other better?"

I nodded in agreement, "Sure." Then I studied her, "Why?"

"Sorry?"

"Why would you want to make nice with the human?"

"It will please the Major." She shrugged. "And to make Peter happy. I owe them both my life."

"Yes." I agreed with a nod. "You do." I knew it might be a little rude but she didn't comment. Instead we both got up and walked back towards the spot I'd parked. Surprising me again, Charlotte climbed into the passenger seat instead of disappearing into the woods and running home.

As the next couple weeks passed I spent more time at home and grudgingly, I liked Charlotte and even her mate a little, his 'daughters' Cassandra and Chloe not so much. Especially Chloe, the one that had compared me to a dog, she was the most stuck up, snotty witch and I would swear till I was blue it was only that and not the way she looked at Peter or was always trying to make him talk or touching him. It definitely wasn't the way they'd disappear into the woods together sometimes and come back looking like they'd been wrestling wild animals, because I didn't care he was fucking her, I refused to care, it was none of my business what kind of skanky snotty vampire slut he was attracted to.

Cassandra wasn't so bad, she looked down her nose at the human but was polite when she did speak to me and she didn't out right despise me the way Chloe seemed to, actually she mostly seemed indifferent to me being around.

I was happy to be spending more time with Ali and Jasper again, though I knew my emotional rollercoaster was hard for him and my indecision about anything had to bother Ali but neither brought it up, like she said they were trying not to use their gifts to control me, waiting for me to go to them if and when I wanted to talk. The more time I was there though I still felt like an outsider in my own home, the harder it was to picture ever really leaving them, I loved them, this was my family and no matter how ill we fit as one, I didn't want to ever be without them. Peter, when he wasn't off with trampy Chloe, was back to being a quiet presence in the background of my life, playing chess in the living room with Jasper while I read, whittling or braiding leather in the corner of the studio while I worked or reading on the porch while I lay in the sun outside.

It was almost July and we were making plans for Independence Day. It would be to sunny for any of them to do anything in the day but there was a fair just outside of town with games and at night there would be dancing and fireworks. Ali was excited and we talked about having a little booth at the fair, I could run it in the day with a girl we'd hired to help in the shop for the summer and then Ali would work it at sunset for a while, then we'd shut down to play. Of course they all planned to be well fed before that, with a trip to Boston for the human drinkers the night before and hunting in the woods during the day for Ali and Jasper. I was looking forward to it.

Now though I was annoyed with Chloe, again, I went for a walk in the woods. It was too sunny for the vampires to be in town but the shop wasn't open today anyways. Peter sought me out a while later.

"Have a feeling?" I asked with a frown. That was usually why he sought me out. Well, me specifically anyway, he was usually around wherever I was but he only followed me or came to find me when one of his odd feelings hit him.

"A lot of them." He sighed dropping to sit beside me, I didn't voice my confusion at his words, sometimes he'd say odd things and he was always a bit short with the words he did speak, I never pushed him to find out why. In the beginning I knew it was because he wasn't really all that comfortable with me, he wasn't sure what to do with or how to act around the resident human. When he had become more comfortable with me being around, well he just wasn't all that comfortable around anyone except Jasper so I shrugged it off and didn't question him much, he'd tell me what he would, when he wanted. Mostly he was a quiet shadow always near, speaking only when words were really needed and never just to fill silence.

"Where's Chloe?" I couldn't help the slightly bitter question, though he made no comment on my tone.

"With her sister." He shrugged like it was unimportant.

"Oh."

"You don't like her." It was a simple statement of fact, not an accusation or question, just an observation spoken like he was commenting on the weather.

"Not even a little." I grumbled.

Peter chuckled, "Me neither."

My head whipped around to look at him in shock, "You… but you… she… there's… I thought…"

"What?" He frowned at me.

"You have sex." I hissed.

"That." He shrugged. "It's been a long time for me, especially with a vampire. She was willing."

"Willing? Wait vampire? Why especially with a vampire?"

"Usually I sleep with humans from bars."

"Humans? You can… I mean, without killing them, or is it a play with your food thing?" I made a face.

Peter chuckled and shook his head, "No, I don't eat, well I don't drink the women I've had sex with." I blushed at his correction in terms.

"I didn't think…"

He shrugged, "Being with a vampire means I don't have to be careful but I'm not around vampires much. I'm not around people much, at least not before coming back to the Major. It's easier to pick up a one night stand at a club when the urge hits."

"Right."

"You and Edward never…"

"No." I blushed brighter. "I dated a couple guys in Portland over the term." He nodded and I watched his fist clench and unclench. "How can you be with someone you don't even like?"

He shrugged, "It's been a long time. Did you like the boys in Portland?"

"Yes." I nodded and then frowned, "I didn't love them but at least I liked them."

"Do you like me?"

I laughed, "Of course I like you."

"Then we should have sex." His tone was just as matter of fact as when he'd said he didn't like Chloe or as if he were telling me we should watch a movie.

"What?" I yelped, blushing.

"Why not?" He questioned with a frown.

"Do you like me?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I also desire you, much more than Chloe."

"Me?" I blushed.

Peter nodded and tossed a rock into the water of the stream I had sat at.

"I don't know." I hesitated after a moment, my body was saying, _hell yes, on with the sexing, now!_ My heart was crying, _he'll just break me like Edward!_ My mind was screaming, _wait! Is this a bad idea or good? You didn't feel good about yourself after sleeping with Keith or Adam because you didn't love them. Do you want to sleep with your friend, Jasper's brother? It could ruin everything? It could make everything too. _Another side of me argued. _You felt bad about them because you compared them to him, to what he might be like! _

Peter sat quietly through my mental debate for a few minutes and then pulled me into his lap making me gasp. "You think to much." He told me before kissing me. I melted into his granite form, kissing him back as passion grew between us. He pulled away after kissing me senseless, letting me catch my breath. My body had taken over, or my libido had, so after a few breaths I claimed his mouth again.


	5. Chapter 5

When we got back to the house, it was empty so I went to shower. Peter followed me into my room and when the others finally arrived back, hours later, I was unconscious, naked in my bed, sleeping off the sated coma I was in from the sex demon named Peter Whitlock.

If I thought Chloe didn't like me before… when I woke up she was positively glowering at me. I smirked at her, grabbed an apple and dropped myself into Peter's lap on the grass. I had never known I was vindictive before and fought a blush at my actions. I'd also never been physical with Peter like this before, of course I'd never been fucked silly by him before today either but sex and sitting in his lap around everyone was different, clearly, since he could have sex with the harlot blood sucker he didn't even like all that much.

His arm wrapped around me and he kissed my bare shoulder though his focus never left his book. I sighed and leaned further back into him as I ate my apple relaxing as I realized this was ok for him. Alice was bouncing with an expression I could only describe as gloating and Jasper was grinning over at us. I guessed they approved.

Chloe was talking to Cassandra and glowering at us, Cassandra as usual seemed indifferent. Charlotte looked curious, her mate, well I couldn't see his expression.

When I finished my apple Peter took the core and tossed it into the woods, lifting me as he stood and carried me into the woods, his book abandoned in the grass.

"Peter?" I questioned.

"Had a feelin." He explained.

"Ok." I lifted a brow at him but he just shrugged.

"Peter?" I hesitated, "Do you have a feeling about us?"

"Maybe." He shrugged.

"What kind of a feeling?"

"A bite you kind."

I swallowed, "Um, maybe you should go into town and hunt then. I'd really rather you didn't eat me."

"Seems you liked when I ate you." He smirked making me blush. He chuckled, "I don't want to kill you Bella. Never did. That's the odd thing. I mean, I tolerate humans ok, I can have sex with them and not kill em, my control is good but I never didn't at all want to drink them."

"You don't want to kill me?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Just a feeling."

"A feeling?"

"I want to bite you."

"You said that."

He sighed and set me on my feet, "I want to bite you… to keep you."

"You mean…."

"I mean, I might love you, damn stubborn woman and I almost killed those two damn frat boys and I mighta killed Edward, since I've wanted to since we met. Chloe didn't get ya outta my system and bitch is a vampire, she took all I could give to get rid a ya and these damn feelins but I know shit and I know I want to keep ya and that ain't goin away." He growled at me. "You're worse than Char ever was. I thought I loved her but it was lust and friendship, till her the Major was all I had for a friend. She was different and she broke my damn heart. Now I have a weak human, could die easily and all these possessive, protective, lovin feelins for her, for you and I feel weak but I can't leave cause something might happen to yeh and I want to just bite ya damn it."

"Peter?" My mouth felt dry.

"Now I've had you and its just fuckin worse because you taste sweeter than you smell and it's a damn fuckin drug I want more of and next little frat boy fucker touches you I might damn well not be able to stop myself killin the little shit because you're mine damnit and I want to bite yeh and fuck you until you can't walk straight." He hissed at me and then ran his hand through his hair, "I sure as hell don't want to talk about this." He grumbled. "I just want to fuck you silly, now."

I swallowed and nodded.

I had a feeling I was going to have to get used to going back to the house covered in dirt and leaves, picking twigs out of my hair, as I did so for the second time in fourteen hours. I would also need to get into better shape, I had muscles hurt that I didn't realize existed.

He was insatiable and one look of those intense, dark maroon eyes was all it took for me to be quivering with anticipation. He never made me wait though, once my body responded to the idea his eyes would blacken and he'd lift me into his arms and carry me off to his bedroom, my bedroom, the studio or the woods, wherever a fraction of privacy was closest.

July 4th I worked the booth, my body protesting its over use even as my mind strayed back to him and the searing kiss he'd left me with this morning, vibrant red eyes from freshly hunting darkening with desire to the addictively sexy maroon. It was a long day on my feet and I was glad when Alice came to help. When we closed the booth, she took me to eat while we waited for the others.

Eventually Jasper, Peter, Charlotte and Zach joined us; I looked around for the floozy and indifferent duo but didn't see them anywhere.

"Are the girls meeting us somewhere?" I forced myself to be polite.

"My daughters decided to stay in the city." Zach smiled at me.

I tried to bite back my grin as I bounced up, "Ok, then."

Jasper chuckled feeling my glee and shook his head a little.

"Alice is rubbing off on you." Charlotte told me.

"Hey!" Alice bounced up pretending to be indignant, "Just because we know how to have fun."

Charlotte laughed and we began walking to the rides. Peter held my hand, bought me cotton candy and sat with me to watch the dancers.

"Do you dance Peter?" I asked him watching the other four vampires putting the humans to shame as they followed the country tunes.

"Some." He nodded, "I would with you."

"I can't dance." I tell him with a blush.

"You can do anything you want." He told me as I felt a boost of confidence from Jasper, of course they could hear me over the music and halfway across the damn room, or maybe he could just feel my self-doubt.

I rolled my eyes at both of them, "Kinda clumsy remember."

He shrugged, "My feet will hardly bruise for being stepped on and I wont let you fall." He told me standing up and holding out his hand, "This is fun, besides if you stop thinking about it you'll have fun and be good at it."

"How do you know?" I asked doubtfully as I gave him my hand and let him tug me to my feet to lead me to the dance floor.

"You're good at sex and this is almost the same, just with clothes on, it's the same instincts anyways."

I flush at his matter of fact words and nerves fill me as he pulls me into his arms but confidence comes from Jasper and its mixed with his own happiness so I smile at Peter and nod.

I know I'm a bit stiff and self conscious at first, I step on his feet a few times but he doesn't mind and when he kisses me I forget where we are and that there are people around us, it gets easier to move to the music as I feel him growing and pressing against his jeans as we move. I know he can smell how much I want him but for the first time he doesn't act on our mutual desire, he draws it out, continuing to dance with me until we hear the first bang of fire works and move off the floor to watch. It's a magical night and as I lean back against him I sigh happily. The feeling of being in his arms doesn't scare me until I wake up in the morning and realize what the feeling was, I was in love with the quiet gruff vampire.

I'm glad Jasper doesn't comment on it, he and Ali seem happy to see Peter and I together but neither of them presses me to talk about the development, they just seem to accept as if it had always been, or maybe always was going to be, had Alice seen this? I didn't ask just like Jasper didn't ask about the waves of love and doubt and worry I felt. What I wanted, what I felt, what my future was, would be for me to work out on my own.

After a week, and more sex than I thought possible, I found myself, in the woods again, sprawled over Peter's chest. Contemplating the months Peter had been in my life and what had been between us, what could be between us and what I maybe wanted. I remembered several things I'd been curious about before but never asked and I was still curious as I thought, now though I felt I could ask.

"Halloween, or that day in town, what was the feeling you had?

"Halloween I just felt something off like I should check on you. I ran back and you were having a terrible nightmare. The Pixie told me you got some after Edward left, that they were pretty bad but better when she or the Major were around so I stayed and you didn't have no more. Mostly it just felt wrong going so far from yeh."

"The day in town? Before Christmas." He didn't answer, "Peter?"

"It weren't my gift." He shrugged beneath me.

"You said you'd had a feeling?"

"I did." He admitted, "Jealousy. Major wasn't helping, saying how the stupid human was lusting after you and then laughing his ass off when I went to fetch you." I giggled and gave up asking him questions, gave up thinking about it as I kissed him.

His jealous side came out again a few days later when Keith came to town to visit his family and we saw him in town. This time Peter didn't try to hide it from me, he kissed me with such passion it set my toes on fire, I wanted to be upset at his possessive side but it was so hot all I could do was moan and drag him to the truck, leaving Ali to watch the store and Keith to stare after us. Lucky me, Ali couldn't leave until sunset anyways and I knew by the shake of his head and chuckle Keith didn't mind, he was a good friend but we had agreed that was all after our very short, failed three weeks together.

When I was off with Pete, which was more often than not, I was perfectly happy, sore everywhere and sleepy but happy. I'd once woken up to his hands running over my body and him slipping gently into me. Best wake up call ever. The sex aside, Peter still spoke very little but I didn't mind, he was always touching me and I could swear it was so tenderly I could close my eyes and believe what I was feeling was his love for me. Not that he ever told me he loved me and I never told him that. We also never talked about him biting me again but slowly I was getting to know him better than I knew myself and at times it was like I had Jasper's gift, to use solely for Peter, like I could almost feel what he was feeling when I looked at him. He could read me even better than I could him of course and was sweet and tender and possessive and passionate all at the same time. Damn it, I cursed myself, I was in love with the quiet, wounded scruffy, vampire and it amazed and terrified me and I still had no fucking clue what to do about it.

When I wasn't off with him, I was working and spending time with Ali but I didn't see Jasper as much anymore and I missed him. Clearly he missed me too and Peter and Ali could tell because when they met us in town after the store closed one day, Peter and Ali ran off and shooed us away together.

I immediately wanted to jump Peter when I saw him, no matter how sore or sated I was, I always wanted him when I saw him, then when he and Ali decided it was Jasper and Bella bonding night I wanted to hug him and kiss him and thank him for being so sweet and knowing just what I needed when I needed it. It made my heart swell with the emotion I was trying to pretend wasn't there.

Jasper and I didn't talk about Peter at all which surprised me, I knew I could talk to him, I knew he could feel the love and doubt and confusion but even though I had thought I wanted to talk to him about it, I found I couldn't and he didn't ask. He asked how I was doing with the others visiting so long but mostly we agreed just to spend time the two of us and forget all the rest. It was a perfect evening, I'd missed my brother even more than I'd realized.


	6. Chapter 6

Charlotte and her coven finally left and life settled back down to our old routines, though Alice and Jasper had a lot more alone time since I spent a lot more time with Peter than before our summer romance, ok more like our summer fucking like wild animals in heat, had started.

Peter had still never brought up biting me again but he'd always kiss the spot on my neck over my pulse point and he left hickeys over the artery in my upper thigh. I wondered if he would ask me to change, he hadn't then of course, just said he'd wanted to and I wondered if he would and when. I wasn't going to push, not like I had with Edward, I didn't want to fight with Peter. He never fought anyways, he'd say what he had to say and close off ending any discussion, I'd seen him do it to Chloe and to Charlotte in the months they'd visited and I really didn't want him to close off from me.

After so many weeks passed and summer was almost over it was all I could do not to say anything so I resolved to bring it up but not push him on it. Jasper and Alice had never brought it up at all and I wondered why. Part of me worried it was because they wouldn't do it though part of me thought maybe they were waiting for me to bring it up so as not to push me or pressure me. They tried so hard to let me live my life and make my own decisions, I appreciated it but in this I wished they bring it up so I knew for sure how they felt.

Now I was going to and I felt at once nervous and determined, "I'm going to be twenty in a couple weeks." Peter nodded, his concentration on the chessboard in front of him.

Jasper was frowning down at the board, chess and fighting, well sparring without Jasper using his gift, were the two things they were pretty equally matched at and it was always fun to watch them spar but when they played chess it was like they were planning out battle attacks that could save or destroy the world, they were so intense.

"Want to do somethin special Darlin?" Jasper asked after he'd made his move.

"No parties." I shook my head.

Jasper chuckled, "No wrapping paper at any rate."

Alice came dancing into the room, placing a vase of fresh flowers on the table. "I was thinking we'd go to New York this year, it will be cloudy."

"I like New York." I nodded.

"It's not very remote though." Alice mused, laughter in her eyes, she'd clearly seen my decision to bring this up.

Jasper looked up from the board, "You two are feeling very amused and mischievous today, what have you cooked up for this birthday?"

"I'm going to be twenty Jazz." I reminded him.

"Yes."

"You're twenty."

"Technically." He agreed.

"Ali is nineteen."

"I'm twenty-two." Peter looked up frowning at us.

"I know." I nodded.

"I'm missing something." Jasper frowned at us.

"I'd say since I am no longer a teen, I am definitely an adult. I own half a relatively successful shop and thanks to Ali's investments, I have savings and own a quarter of this house. That's all very grown up of me."

"What are you thinking about Darlin?" Jasper questioned my growing nerves.

"Bell?" Peter was studying me, even more intently than he had the chessboard.

"I'd like to discuss my change." Both men stared at me mutely. "Not today." I wasn't sure if I was allaying fears that I would ask or dashing hopes. Neither man was anything like Edward; at least Ali seemed to be vibrating with happiness at the idea and that made me a lot less anxious about the conversation. "I mean to plan for the future, it's the adult thing to do, like making a will."

"Ok." Jasper nodded.

"If I'm mortally wounded, definitely change me. Or going to be paralyzed or any other huge emergency."

"Of course." Jasper was frowning at me.

"You didn't plan to ask in those cases did you?" I smirked at him.

"No." He admitted.

"You think I'd let you die?" Peter spat.

"Breath Peterpire." I grinned at him. "This isn't just about that, I did kind of figure if you accidentally sent me into actual sex coma or one of those 'feelings' was something really dangerous, you'd bite me before I could blink. Jasper too." Both men nodded slowly, "I'm also saying that I don't want to be much older than you guys, which means in the next one to three years, I'd like for you to change me."

"One to three?" Peter questioned, "Is it a vote?"

I smirked at him, hope growing in my belly, "I did say not today."

"Twentieth birthday present?" He asked, laughter in his eyes.

Giddiness swept through me as I grinned back at him, "Sometime between my twentieth and twenty-third. When we're all ready."

"I'm ready, these two are ready, are you?" Alice pressed.

Relief flooded me along with happiness, they really wanted me to be a Whitlock, forever but I shook my head trying to fight the urge to dance around and shout in glee or start crying in relief, I needed to be logical. "No, I want to see my parents one more time and we aren't ready, for example, where would we live? Am I as prepared for the change as I could be? We've never talked about it, besides Peter telling me he wants to bite me and once, a couple years ago, you saying I was going to be a vampire. Edward never told me much, just that the newborn year was bad, all blood lust and crazy. I don't know if I'm ready to lose myself."

"Oh." Alice sighed as she got a vision. "No New York for your birthday."

"We can still celebrate in New York Ali." I hedge, not on my birthday but we could still go.

"You'll be gone so long." She looked sad but at her words Peter seemed positively desolate. "Portland was bad enough last winter and I saw you every week."

"It's only a few weeks. I'll miss you too."

"No." She shook her head, "I see it being longer."

I frowned, "Is something wrong, I mean everyone is ok right?"

"Yes." She sent me a reassuring smile. "Everything is fine, you'll just spend time with them all but you'll be back with us and you will be one of us, forever. I suppose we can share you for a little while."

"Ali? Bella?" Jasper questioned.

"I'm going home to spend my birthday with my mom." I sighed, "Then I'm going to visit Charlie. I need this time with them, to say goodbye."

"Of course." Jasper nodded.

"So you're leavin." Peter nodded.

"Yes." His chair crashed back and in a blur he was gone. I frowned into the empty space unsure what I had done, how I had read him wrong, normally I knew how he was feeling or what he was thinking, I had to, he didn't talk all that much.

"Don't worry Darlin, he's ok." Jasper sent me reassurance.

"Charlotte memories." Alice whispered pulling me away with her. "Jasper will calm him down and remind him it's not the same. You aren't leaving him, just saying goodbye to your past."

"I think I love him Ali."

"I know." She nodded and then grinned at me, "I know you do. Before I saw you as a vampire and I always knew we'd be sisters, now though, I see you as a vampire with Peter and something tells me the vision isn't the near future."

"Do you think…"

"Yes." Ali nodded, "So does Jasper, he says that you feel like mates do."

"Did…"

"You and Edward were in love Bella, very much in love but not so in tune with each other, we all thought it was because you were human but now, with Peter, even after only this one year, you… fit."

"Yeah." I nodded with a smile. "It's an odd fit but… oddly… perfect."

"Aren't we all?" She suggested linking our arms.

"Yes, yes we really are." I agreed thinking about the four of us individually you might not see us as family, nor put Ali and Jazz together, but once you saw them together, you could see they were perfect together, Peter and I were like that and I as I realized it, accepted it, peace filled me. I would be a Whitlock, forever, I'd be Peter's forever and he'd be mine. "Why didn't you tell me about the vision? Why hasn't Jasper said anything about what he felt?"

"I told you Bella, we're trying to let you decide your own future, without feeling like we're controlling your life with our gifts."

"Yes but…"

"But nothing," She shakes her head cutting me off, "If you had really wanted us to use our gifts to make up your mind for you then you would have asked me what I saw or talked to Jasper about how you felt or asked him about Peter's emotions."

"Maybe." I agreed with a sigh, "Except for the Peter part, it wouldn't be fair to ask Jasper to use his gift against him like that."

"Why?" Alice frowned at me, "Peter has."

"Peter what?" I yelped.

"Asks Jazz how you are really feeling." She shrugs, "A few times he's worried he hurt you but that you wouldn't say, you never complain about the bruises at any rate and he doesn't mean to lose control."

"He doesn't hurt me." I frown at her. She smiles crookedly at me and lifts my shirt a little where you can see Peter's fingers bruised on my skin, under my shorts it extends to a perfect purplish match of his hand print. "It doesn't hurt that much and never when he makes them." I defend.

"He just wants to be sure." She shrugs.

"So he asks Jasper if I'm in pain?"

"Sometimes." She hedges.

"What about other times?" I press.

"He asked if you were upset when he dragged you off like a caveman from the shop that time Keith came in and how sad you feel when you were on the phone with Renee or Charlie, if you maybe miss them enough to leave us. He used to ask if he scared you, if you disliked or resented having him live with us, then it was if you liked him or were maybe a little attracted to him, then it was did it bother you he was screwing Chloe enough that it could maybe be called jealous and not just that you didn't like Chloe. Now it's do you feel like you could really care about him and want him around, if you ever feel suffocated by him, if you are exasperated by the way he hovers, still sometimes if he scares you at all and if you think about Edward, if you still love him, he asks Jasper lots of things. He's never asked if you feel like mates and Jasper has never said and I think he's afraid of asking if you love him but he asks everything else about what you like or how you feel about things. He doesn't really know how to ask you and you don't really talk at him the way I do or Charlotte used to so he asks Jasper and sometimes me."

I am quiet as I listen and then go over her words a second time in my head, finally a breath out, "Why can he ask you and not me?"

"Jasper is, well he's Jasper and Peter is only completely comfortable talking to Jasper. I talk at him a lot, you know how I can chatter, and I ask him things and have had a few decades to make him do more than just respond but to comment and ask things too so he's used to me." She shrugs, "Peter's been alone a long time Bella. He has a few nomad friends and Jasper and I are his family but social skills are sort of a weak point for him. Human interaction is limited to feeding or on the odd occasion picking up a girl in a bar for sex and that is more of an instinct thing and less of a conversation one, like feeding. Actually trying to get to know someone, being friends, its kind of new to him." She looks at me with a sad almost smile, "Making friends wasn't exactly encouraged in the southern wars so all his vampire life he's been fighting or mostly alone."

"Do you know about his human life?"

"Some." She nods, "If you ask me all about him and he asks Jasper all about you though, the two of you will never just talk to each other."

"How?" I sigh, "I don't want to push him to talk to me if he doesn't want to."

"He doesn't know how to make conversation Bella, just talk at him a little and he'll relax and eventually contribute like he does with me."

"This being mates thing isn't going to help much is it?"

"Has it helped much this last year?" She offers in reply.

"I didn't know before."

"Now you know but it doesn't make a difference to it being true Bella. Maybe it makes you feel easier about loving him, more secure that he wants you to be changed, to be with him forever, like Jazz and I do but what's between you, that wont change because you know you have this bond. You might not have recognized it but it's there whenever you are quiet together, its why you gravitate towards each other even when you are doing separate things, sitting near each other or unconsciously touching as you pass. That peace and contentment, its something only felt between mates."

"So what does it mean then?"

"It means in a thousand years, you'll still want to be near him, you will know him better than yourself but still be surprised by him. It means that the sexual desire will never fade, no matter how many times you memorize each others bodies or likes and dislikes, it will always feel as amazing and wondrous as the first time he claimed you, more so once you do it for the first time as a vampire."

"Otherwise it's just… there. I mean, I still have my insecurities and he still has his and it wont just, I don't know, get easier?"

"Of course it will get easier, you'll get over your insecurities together, in time it will be as natural you to talk to each other about anything as it is for you to talk to me or him to Jasper, easier because you wont have insecurities with each other about anything."

"In time?"

"Yes, eventually everything will fall in to place and you'll be secure and happy together."

"Eventually?" I groan.

"No relationship is just sunshine and rainbows Bella. Love at first sight might exist in fairy tales but happily ever after takes a bit of work."

I sigh but we are both grinning, "Thanks Ali." I tell her as we hug.

"You do know how much Jazz and I want you?" She asks gentle as she pulls away, her smile gone, "Only sometimes Jasper isn't sure you do."

I smile at her as tears sting my eyes and shake my head my words contradicting the movement, "I do." I sigh and correct myself, "I want to, I just, sometimes I'm not sure. You've never brought it up and Edward was against even discussing it and I just, we were so happy and then Charlotte came and I felt so… out of place… like I didn't belong."

"You do Bella. You're a Whitlock now and forever, you were the moment you made the decision to move away with us after graduation."

"I love you Ali." I hug her again and she hugs me back just a little to tight but I don't mind as I squeeze her back tighter.

We laugh as we pull apart, venom in her eyes and tears in mine, "Ok, so it's talked about now and you'll be changed this year and never ever have to doubt that you're a Whitlock again."

"This year?" I ask.

She nods, "Oh, sorry, we didn't actually discuss that yet, it's ok if you change your mind, the vision I saw, it doesn't matter when, you decide and forget I mentioned anything."

I shake my head and laugh, "I already decided remember, I just wasn't sure when you'd do it, I was going to wait and see what happened."

"Oh." She stalls and I turn to look at her.

"Ali?"

She looks away a little, "I, um, I can't Bella. I can't be the one."

"Alice?"

"I don't think I have that control, I mean, I've never tried before. I suppose if you decided its what you want I would see if I was able to stop, I think, maybe. I just, I guess I figured it would be Jasper, he's done it so many times before and I know he could stop Bella, I promise he'd be able to. Peter would do it to of course, he'd want to being mates but Jasper made him too so I guess we all just thought it would be Jasper."

"I didn't mean," I smile at her, "I'd like Jasper to be the one to bite me. I never even really thought about which of you would do it, honestly I'd be happy if either of you did or Peter. I trust all of you to be able to stop."

Alice grins at me again and links our arms, "We love you so much Bella, of course you're right, I'd stop too, you're my sister, I'd never be able to really hurt you."

"Never." I agreed.

Later that night Peter slipped into my room and I held out my hand so he'd join me in the bed, "I'm not leaving you." I reassured him.

"Feels like it." He whispered kissing my temple. "I don't like the idea of bein so far from you."

"I know." I sighed. "I'll miss you." I snuggle into his cold embrace and unlike other nights it's not to start something or in sated exhaustion, I just curl into him and close my eyes, drifting into peaceful sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Alice arranged everything for me and in less than a week I was boarding my plane to Jacksonville. I spent ten days with my mom, she was thrilled to spend my birthday together. Then it was on to see Charlie. I had planned for ten days with him as well and was trying to stick to the plan but I already missed Peter terribly. He must have felt the same or Alice had seen because she'd arranged for three days in Seattle before I was due at my dad's. Peter met me at the airport and we didn't leave the hotel until checkout. He took me to the airport where I flew into PA and Charlie picked me up. He was excited and nervous as he told me he was going to propose to Sue. I was happy for him, especially when she said yes when he did pop the question two days later. It meant an extended stay for the small ceremony, which it seemed Alice had planned for. It was three weeks before I was leaving again, I'd gotten to see Peter in PA twice but mostly I spent time helping dad move to the reservation and into Sue's house and getting to know her kids. Seth was great but Leah seemed to hate me on sight. Billy it seemed had never forgiven me for dating Edward Cullen and Jake was distant, it had been a long time though and we hadn't really been close so I didn't let it bother me. After the wedding I kissed Charlie goodbye, happy that both my parents were happy, in love and would have some one to take care of them.

This time when I got to the airport, I saw my ticket wasn't going home. I called Alice.

"It's another birthday present!" Alice announced in lieu of hello.

"Ali?" I questioned as I waited in line to check in.

"Peter's already there. It's his house. Jasper and I will miss you but we'll see you at Christmas! We love you."

Peter and I were living in a small ranch house an hour from Vegas. Jasper had gotten me an ID saying it had been my twenty-first birthday instead of twentieth and we spent plenty of time in the city, we went dancing and Peter taught me how to gamble, I was terrible but we had fun. The sex was still phenomenal, and just from that I was in the best shape of my life but I also spent a lot of time swimming. Halloween was my favorite, we spent all day with the curtains closed watching scary movies and then we got dressed up in a couples costume, him as the mad hatter and me as Alice. Vegas was a riot that night.

November we came across a nomad. A very beautiful woman who went straight for Peter at a club where we were dancing, she clearly thought I was prey. I had never wanted a lighter so bad in my life. Peter seemed to like my jealous side, if my lack of ability to walk properly for the next two days was any indication. It helped that he barely looked at her. He noticed attractive women and even made derogatory comments sometimes but he was a strictly look not touch or even talk to, guy. He wasn't big on being polite either, not if any woman was 'rude' or so 'fucking stupid' to try to hit on him when he had his woman with him.

"Does that mean you'd flirt if I weren't here?" I asked teasingly one day.

"No." That was the end of the conversation. The thing was, with Peter, I knew it was true. He looked at women, appreciated their bodies but he wasn't overly sociable and didn't care about anyone but me, well Jazz and Ali too but everyone else he just seemed to tolerate.

I had decided to take Alice's advice to try to get him comfortable with me. Well he was comfortable with me, we had the whole mate content to be near each other thing going for us and he was more than just comfortable with my body, he was downright inventive with sex. I wanted him to talk to me though, for us to be more than content as mates and sated from fucking like bunnies. So I started to talk to him. It didn't work so well, I asked him a few questions and he'd answer with as few words as possible.

My simple. "Do you remember your human life?"

Was met with a shrug and the unhelpful, "Some."

Another attempt, "Do you have a best friend?"

"Jasper."

"He's your brother."

"Alice."

I let it go. Next time it was, "Where is your favorite place?"

"Texas."

"Least favorite?"

"Texas."

That made me bite back a laugh but explained absolutely nothing. "What's your favorite color?"

"Blood." Ok I laughed at that one and then he smirked and gave me a real answer, "Purple."

"Really?" He just nodded.

"What's you favorite flower?" I only got a lifted brow on that one.

It was frustrating and I wanted to stomp my foot and growl at him.

"Don't try so hard to get him to open up Bella, like you said to me, pushing him won't help."

"So what do I do?" I huffed at Alice. Peter was out hunting so I had called her after the no answer lifted eyebrow moment.

"Talk at him."

"Talk _at_ him."

"Yes." She giggled, "Just, voice whatever you are thinking, he'll either say something or just listen and eventually he'll ask you things and start to tell you things too. Give it time, Charlotte talked at him for almost a decade."

"They were only together a decade." I groan.

Alice laughed, "Ok, well I only talked at him for a half dozen years before he felt natural with me and I only really spent a little time with him over the last half century Jazz and I have been together." I grumbled and huffed at her but she just laughed.

"He is trying darlin." Jasper's voice cut in soothingly, "He wants to talk to you but every time he goes to he second guesses himself and can't get the words out."

"Really?"

"He calls Jasper and whines about it." Alice laughs.

"He does?"

"It was easier for him when I was there to tell him that no you weren't scared of him because he was to rough with you and you don't mind him in your personal space or yes you are happy to see him and you missed him even though you were only at work four hours."

"Maybe we should just come home." I sighed.

"You have to work through it eventually Bella or you'll always have these insecurities. Jazz and I can't be your relationship crutch for eternity."

"How about just a century or two?"

She laughed at that and even Jasper chuckled, "Give it a little time darlin, you two are good together, I feel it."

"And I see it so just trust us a little."

"I thought you weren't using your gifts to arrange my future."

"We aren't, you already decided you wanted it to be with him."

"With you." I corrected. At their silence I bit my lip and whispered, "I didn't mean that."

"If you want to come home darlin, come home." Jasper replied gently. "Just don't give him hope if their ain't none." His accent was heavy, more like Peter's and I could tell how conflicted he was.

"We're mates." I remind him, tears stinging my eyes.

"You feel like mates darlin and Ali sees you two happy in the future, or she did. It don't mean you are mates."

"You mean we might not be?" I almost choke on the words as the tears roll silently down my face now.

"We don't know for sure Bella, only you and Peter can know that and maybe not until you're a vampire."

"He had sex with skankypire and I lost my virginity to Keith, wouldn't we have just been together months and months ago if we were mates."

"Doesn't work like that darlin." Jasper sighs, "Come on home, give yourselves some time, maybe we were all rushin things."

"Alice said we don't come home until Christmas it's only November."

"I said we'd be together again by Christmas Bella not that we wouldn't be before then. I saw us together for the holiday, I was sorry to see you go but happy it wouldn't be for long and that slipped out, I didn't mean for it to affect your decisions. You and Peter can stay on your own or come home to us whenever you want to, now or next August, that is up to you, it's your life."

I was crying on the couch still holding the phone though none of us were talking, when Peter came in, eyes vibrant red.

"What happened?" He demands.

I shake my head and sniffle, "Peter's home." I tell them.

"Pete." Jasper's voice on the other line sounds tired, I don't need to even move the phone for them to hear each other.

"Major?" Peter looks from the headset to my eyes, frowning in question. "What happened?"

"Nothing." Alice speaks up before Jasper or I can say anything, not that I had a clue what to say.

"Major?" Peter asks again, his voice low and demanding.

"No trouble Captain." Jasper's voice is harder, confident and sure, they are saying more than the words and I see a line of tension in Peter relax slightly.

"Call me tomorrow Bella and we can have girl talk, nothing has to be decided right now."

I nod slowly and sniffle again, "Ok Ali."

"I…" Jasper stops from saying whatever he was going to say, "Sleep well darlin."

"Love you both."

"Love you too." They respond at the same time. I hang up the phone and look at Peter.

"Homesick?" He asks gently, tilting his head as he watches me with that intense expression he gets playing chess with Jasper. I shrug and nod at the same time. "We can pack up and go home."

I shake my head and sniffle, "Not yet."

Peter just picks me up at sits back down with me cradled in his arms, I sigh and bury my face in his neck breathing him in and after a little bit, I fall asleep.

There are daisies everywhere when I wake up and a note on the table, _Ali says you need girl time and I know you don't like me always on you with the blood this time of the month so I'll be back in two days. I met a friend in Vegas yesterday so I'll spend the time with him and give you space. Call my cell if you need anything. _

I sigh and sink into the kitchen chair picking up the phone as it rings, already knowing it's Alice. "Morning Ali."

"You ok?"

"How did he know I like daisies?"

"He called after you fell asleep and said you asked him about flowers and wanted to know which you liked best."

I rolled my eyes though she couldn't see it, "He thought I was complaining about him not buying me flowers so he filled the house with them?"

"You were upset Bella and he doesn't understand why, he feels like he's doing things wrong with you but doesn't know what and he's frustrated because Jasper doesn't have the answers or wont give them to him, just like you are frustrated we wont give you any."

"Why?"

"Why wont we give you any?" She clarifies the question and at my affirmative sound she sighs, "Because you need to figure things out on your own, to grow as a couple. Jasper and I had a lot of the same issues when we met."

"You did?" Ok now that shocked the shit out of me.

Alice giggles, "Maybe worse."

I get up and move to the couch settling in for a long chat. "Ok, explain."

"Ok." She agrees as there is a knock.

I sigh getting up, "That's the door."

"I know." She responds as I open the door to see her standing on the other side.

"ALICE!" I shout jumping forward and crushing her in a hug.

"Don't you know by now I'm always here when you need me?" She laughs skipping inside and pulling me with her.

"Where's Jasper?" I ask looking behind us though she'd swung the door closed already, "Is he the friend Peter is in Vegas with?"

"Nope." She laughs, "Jasper is on a hunting trip with Emmett, Peter ran into Garrett, sexy American Revolution era nomad, he's fun and always down for any tiny adventure."

"Alice!"

"What?" She laughs, "I love Jasper and I'll never want another man or vampire the way I want him, it doesn't mean I don't appreciate a sexy male when I meet one." I laugh and shake my head at her. After a minute I frown and she nods, "Peter was fighting the attraction to you, that's why he slept with Chloe, before he ever met you there were a few others over the decades, a couple vampires and some humans but no one he's been drawn to like he is you. No one he's cared for except Charlotte, he never let himself care after her, not for anyone, except me and I was only let into his inner circle because of Jasper. Anyone else, including nomads like Garrett, earned his respect and maybe some small affection over a long time and he's still closed off from them in a lot of ways."

"You still think we're mates?" I whisper.

Alice nods, "More than I thought you and Edward could be." She sighs, "I don't have an absolute for you but I believe it and Jasper believes it and I think you believe it too, the question is, what do you want to do about it."

I shrug and then frown, "Jasper's with Emmett? Do they know…" I wave between us in question.

Alice shakes her head, "We've never said. They know Jasper ran off after what happened and I went after him and we've both spoken to them a few times since but they never bring it up and neither do we."

"They must miss you, you must miss them."

"No more or less than you." She shrugs, "We made the choice that was right for us Bella. We love the Cullen's but you are our sister, one day we'll all see each other again, forever is a long time after all but I don't know when and I don't know what will happen then yet either, there's to much in the way, to many decisions not made yet."

"Alice?" We settled on the couch and I leaned against her, "I do really love him."

"I know." She murmurs playing with my hair. "He loves you too." Then she chuckles, "Just look at this place, he must have bought out every flower store of daisies that was open this morning."

"He's sweet like that." I agree with a chuckle, reaching a hand over to pluck one from a water jug. "Alice?"

"Yes, Jasper and I really had issues when we first met."

"Will you tell me about it, about meeting him, not just the you waited forever and he finally came and then you found the Cullen's parts, the real you and Jasper part."

Alice chuckles and her cold hard body snuggles against mine as she wraps us up in a heavy fur blanket, the fire is going and I know if her cool frame wasn't cuddled with mine I'd be roasting but now it feels nice.

"I did wait for decades for Jasper." She sighs, "I saw him in my visions but I didn't know him, like you and Peter before the sex. Then he showed up and well since I was a vampire too the sex part was even more than you and Peter though I'm pretty sure you could give some vampire's, including Chloe a run for their money on the lusty scale, at least Jasper will swear it."

I giggle with her. "So you and Jasper find each other and there is lots of hot vampire loving." I urge her to continue.

"Lots." She agrees giggling again. After a moment though she sighs, "Jasper was very… damaged, after Maria. Peter came back for him and the bond they had built over decades grew that much stronger but Charlotte left Peter and Jasper was already suffering, it was hard for them both to be together so even though it hurt them both, and they parted ways."

"They were alone in their misery." I sighed.

"Together they felt their own and each others pain, it was a bad cycle." She explained, "They did it for each other." I nod and she sighs again, "Jasper was trying to find something, anything to balance out the turmoil inside of him and one day, he found me." Her smile was sad as she remembered that day, "Jasper was the first being, human or vampire, I'd ever met that didn't think of me as a freak. I was so alone for a very long time Bella. I saw Jasper and I loved him and I saw our place with the Cullen's and it gave me so much hope. Jasper didn't have that and when he found me, Jasper didn't know how to live Bella. Peter, he doesn't know how to be… social. Jasper, he knew blood and death and war and pain and the only good thing, the only… anything, he knew was Peter and Charlotte. She left Peter and so she left Jasper and then Peter and Jasper parted ways so really all Jasper knew outside of the war and pain and death was sorrow and loss. It took him a long time to trust me, to let himself love me to know I was never leaving him and he'd never have to be what he used to be again. Jasper is my everything and I love every part of him, every dark corner in his soul but I was able to bring him light and laughter and love just as he brought me security and affection and warmth. It wasn't easy, when we found the Cullen's we were still… trying."

"Did it take a long time, to be the way you are now?"

"It took as many years as we have been together and what we will be in a century will have taken that long as well. A relationship is always growing, changing with the people in it, the only thing that wont change is how much I love him and want to be with him in every way."

I sigh and snuggle into her side, "Did you fight?"

"Jasper and I still fight." She laughs, "Not often but we do it well and make up even better." I laugh with her and blush.

"What about?"

"Hmmm." She taps her fingers on my blanket covered arm as she pretends to think, "Some memorable Jasper fights, there are so many to choose from." I laugh and nudge her with my elbow. "There was the mini dress fiasco of the sixties."

"Mini dress fiasco?"

"Vampires can be possessive in nature and I jumped right on the short skirt band wagon. Jasper threw a fit, tossed me over his shoulder carried me back up the stairs of the house to our room and swatting my bum six times while he growled at me like I was a disobedient child."

I laughed and she huffed indignant, "What did you do?"

"Screamed at him, threw things and then wore an even shorter dress the next day." She shrugged making me laugh harder. "There was also the day I had a layover in Austen on a flight to South America. He was positively drooling venom he was so angry. I'm barely allowed to fly over Texas without him throwing a shit fit."

"Why?" I frowned at her, Peter clearly had a thing about Texas too.

"It's where she still lives. It's not like it was in the southern wars, the Volturi finally cracked down on that insanity in the early seventies really hard but she's still there and Jasper hasn't completely gotten over that part of his past." She sighs sadly, "I don't know if he ever will, Peter either though I still hope, in time, he can put it behind him and be completely at peace with who he is and where he came out of."

"I take it you took that fight sitting down." I whispered back.

Alice chuckled and shook her head, "Lying down more like it, and against a wall and bent over a dresser and in everyway he could give it until the crazy passed and he was secure that I was with him and safe and nothing at all bad had happened."

"How long did that take?"

"Three too short days." She sighed dramatically making me laugh again.

We giggled and talked and she told me stories about her and Jasper jumping from one decade to another in no discernable order. We ordered me pizza and watched some romantic comedies and I slept, in Peter's shirt and then we did it all again the next day with some shopping added in and then gambling.

I was a little drunk when I stumbled into bed that night and in the morning Peter was sitting in the room reading and Ali was gone again.

"She left?" I whisper. Peter just nodded setting his book aside. "How was your visit with Garrett?" I got the infuriating shrug again and swallowed down the urge to growl at him and stomp my foot, made easier by the fact I was lying down, so I just stretched and groaned instead.

It was a couple hours before I ended up getting up after that, I guessed he not only didn't mind me sleeping in only his shirt but rather liked the idea.


	8. Chapter 8

Peter came into the kitchen as I made something to eat and I bit my lower lip, talk at him, ok, I could do this, now what to talk about? Why didn't I have trouble walking to Alice about nothing? Probably because I talked _with_ Alice about nothing and not just _at_ her, but hey I mentally talked to myself all the time, I could talk to him instead.

"I lost a hundred dollars at the casino last night." He shrugged as if it were unimportant but I just ignored him and continued, "How a future seeing Pixie can be so bad at gambling I have no idea, she must have lost at least a grand. I tell her to pick games she can see the outcome of but Ali swears they are games of chance and that she can't see them is what makes it fun. I guess she's right." I shrug and start to eat, watching him, it feels odd talking at a person like they aren't really there and I'm not sure I like it very much.

"Do you like that book?" I ask him as we settle into the living room. His shrug makes me want to hit him.

"I like the classics, Jane Austen mostly, the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens or I used to." I shrug, "I guess I don't read much of them anymore, I wonder why? I guess it doesn't matter really." I sigh.

"Do you want to see a show?" His question startles me from my own thoughts and I shoot my eyes from where I'd been blankly staring at the wall for a few minutes onto him.

"A show? Like a movie? In a movie theater instead of here at home?"

"Or like a play." He shrugs.

"Really?" I bounce on the couch, "What would we see? Not that it matters, it will be so fun."

Peter smiles and nods, "Tonight then?"

"Tonight?" I yelp and jump up, "I have to go get ready and shower."

"Alone?" He asks with that wicked look in his eyes.

I smirk and shake my head, "Definitely needs to be a joint venture."

Peter laughs and it makes tingles flow through me, I love his laugh. After our shower and my second attempt to get dressed, ok ok so I ruined the first but he looked so damn sexy in nothing but low slung wranglers as he watched me getting dressed it was beyond my capabilities not to unzip them and shove them over the hips they barely clung too.

I'm excited as we join the crowd to see Cirque Du Soleil and I'm almost bouncing as I cling to his hand.

The morning after the show I woke to see a bag packed by the front door, "Peter?"

"I've eaten in Vegas for to many weeks, its time for a road trip."

"Ok." I smile at him, "What do you do when we're at home?" I ask him later as we settle into his truck.

"At home?"

"When to many people disappear and with the others having stayed so long?"

"Oh, I don't eat at Portland or the other smaller towns much but since I feed less than Jasper and Alice, about once a week to ten days to their two or three days so its less noticed. Boston isn't far either and St. John in Canada. I go as long as I can between feeding and I'm careful, the people I feed from are expected to die or go missing remember."

"Right." I nod still frowning.

"Vegas is easy for me to stay a while, big places like this are but other vampires pass through often, cities that don't sleep draw us to them but I don't like cities much, it gets… to much… everything… for me."

I nod and smile at him, "I like smaller places too."

He nods and starts driving south and though the drive is quiet he'll stop at almost anything that semi sparks an interest in my gaze. The Slaughterhouse Ranch Museum, The Cave of Crystals, Beaches, A village buried in Lava, the Island of the Dolls which creeped me out way to much and made Peter have a laughing fit that scared two tourist children and their mother. We saw natural hot springs, waterfalls, and underground rivers exploring all of Mexico. I'm packing up gifts for Alice and Jasper when I realize just how close to Christmas it is.

"Peter?" I call out to him, we're camping in the middle no where again, just us the now slightly battered truck and dirt roads I'm not completely convinced were real roads.

"Bell?" He responds handing me a small purple flower.

"It's almost Christmas."

He nods, "We can fly out of Cancun, be home in plenty of time."

I grin and him and bounce, wanting to jump in his arms and he's across the room to catch me in his arms and its like he was standing a foot from me or like I could have actually jumped into his arms from across the room as I wrap my arms and legs around him and kiss him thoroughly.

Peter laughs and hugs me a little tighter, "Next time I'll take yeh to South Amercia, I've spent more time there, you'll love it."

"Next time?" I ask as he sets me down.

A line forms between his eyebrows, small and subtle, "I'm nomadic by nature darlin, I have to be to some degree for aging like Ali and the Major but even more for feeding. We can stay a while in a place like last year before going again though, I have a couple places I stay at for a few months here and there most in the wild but we can stay in a city a while if you want, people going missing there is easier to hide for longer than places like Bar Harbor depending on how long you are thinking. Once you change you'll have to decide, well before I suppose, about feeding like me or the Major, that will really decide where we are or how we live for that year, maybe two."

I smile and him and move into his arms again easily, leaning against his granite form, "I meant it in a happy way Pete. I miss them so much but I don't really want to leave here yet either to go back to how things were."

"How what things were with us." I sigh.

"What things?" He asks pulling me away from him a little. I blush and shift while he examines me with the intense chess with Jasper look. "Darlin?"

"You talk to me out here." I whisper.

"I talk to you?"

I nod and bite my lip, "You tell me stories about when you were first in a place or for how long, you" I shrug, "I don't know, you talk to me."

"I didn't talk to you before? Is that what you were always getting at with the odd questions?"

I nod and though tears are stinging the back of my eyes he chuckles, "Pete?"

"I ain't talking any more out here to yeh then I do at home darlin, maybe you just pay more attention."

"That's not true." I huff at him.

"Well at home yeh've got Alice and Jasper and them humans." He growls the last.

"I'm human." I remind him.

"Not for long." He reminds me with a shrug.

"I really am just a pet to you aren't I? Charlotte was right you think I'm some amusing… puppy!"

"Chloe compared yeh to a dog not Charlotte." He reminded me.

I let out a frustrated screech and stomped my foot. This only seemed to amuse him as a smile flicked at the corner of his mouth and before I even registered the movement or the idea that I was going to make a movement let alone the order from my brain sent to my hand, I slapped him. It hurt, me, not him of course and tears sprang to my eyes. "I hate you." I hissed at him spinning away.

He growled and yanked me, painfully by the arm spinning me to face him. I yelped and he loosened his grip but his eyes were pitch black, "You want to hit me do it as a vampire, but don't you ever, ever fuckin walk away from me."

I wanted to be angry but the black in his eyes wasn't fury, it was pain. "I'm not Charlotte, I'm not gonna do what she did, pretend or promise things and then leave you."

It was like I could see the walls shutting down behind his eyes, closing off and locking me out, "No yeh just don't give me nothin but today instead." I was confused at the double negative but before I could question him or say anything else, I was alone.

I sank down to the ground with a sigh and wipe at the tears but its no use, they just keep coming so I give in and cry.

After a while I get up, wash my face with a cloth, change my clothes and continue packing up our things. When Peter gets back I have all of our things packed into the truck and am laying in the back seat absently weaving a copper wire bracelet design while I wait for him.

We don't say anything as I move into the front seat and he puts the car in gear. We don't say anything for a long time, he just hands me some fruit from his pack and we drive for a few hours, nothing but soft country music to fill the silence. That night he gets us a hotel Playa del Carmen and I'm grateful for a real hot shower. He doesn't join me and when I come out his eyes vibrantly red so I know he's been out hunting.

I'm in one of his shirts, if I'm not sleeping naked it's always one of his shirts but his eyes don't roam my bare legs and he doesn't give me that panty dampening smirk he usually does, not that I wear at night anymore.

"Peter?"

"I don't think of yeh as a pet." He says crossing his arms, like we hadn't spent a few hours apart or sitting in silence in the truck but were still standing in the wild mid argument.

"I know that." I sigh and sink onto the mattress.

"I ain't got nothin against humans, besides bein food they're fun."

"For fucking and feeding right." I bite out at him bitterly.

"Yes, I feed on them and used to be I fucked a few of them when bein alone got to… alone for me but I like dancing, and watching them in bars or diners or parks and I like watching sports and playing video games and movies and the theater and lots a other shit too. Only fuckers I got somethin against is the idiots touchin you, tryin to take yeh from me and I can't fuckin help wantin you teh be a damn vampire already so they can't and so death can't neither. It's part of me and I ain't apologizin for it."

"I didn't ask you to."

"No but yeh need to understand, it ain't just them fuckers it's others like me to, I wont like em near yeh Bella, I'm possessive, Char was always on about it but I can't change it. I ain't sociable like the Pixie, hell I ain't even so sociable as the Major and he's as like to rip one of our kinds heads off as shake their hand and maybe he plays human for them Cullen's, for the Pixie and for you but he ain't and he's as like to eat them or snap their necks as bein friendly like with them."

"I know that."

"Do yeh?" He demands, "You ain't a pet to us Bella, not to him, not to the Pixie and not to me but yeh ain't no normal human neither and they are waitin just as much as I am for yeh to be turned into one of us because no matter what you are to us now we ain't equals, yer too damn breakable and its terrifyin." I'm a bit speechless so I just nod. "I don't want to fight with yeh." He finally sighs.

"I don't want to fight either."

"Yer the one pickin fights."

"I wasn't trying to pick one." I argue. "All I said was I was happy out here with you."

"Yeh twist words, Char done that too, sayin cause I want you a vampire that I think of yeh as a pet."

"Please don't compare me to her." I'm trying to be calm.

"I'm tryin to understand yeh and the only comparison I have is Char and Maria and the Pixie."

"You remember your mother."

"Some." He shrugs as though it's unimportant.

"What was she like?"

He shrugs again, "My pa died in the start of the war so Uncle Thomas took meand her in after that, raised me up on the ranch together. He and her don't get along so well but she never liked my daddy neither and made sure to remind me she ain't never wanted me, it wasn't nothin much when she left a couple years later. I ain't much like to fight but I was a damn good shot, and could ride as good as any man so once I could go I joined up with the Rangers, saving up for a little ranch of my own but Jasper and that cunt Maria found me first."

"She left you?"

"Women leave." He says it so matter of fact it breaks my heart.

"How old were you?"

"Bout six, maybe almost seven."

"Do you know what happened to her?" He just shrugs. "What about your Uncle?"

"Killed by some gunslinger year before I joined up. Bank took over the ranch and I tried to find work on a few other places for a bit, till I found my way teh the Rangers."

I don't know what to say so I let the silence fall and after a little bit climb into the bed and sigh, "Peter?" I think I hear a sound of acknowledgement, "I'm not going to leave you like they did."

"Don't start makin promises yeh can't keep now darlin. I ain't meant what I said before bout only given today."

"It's not a promise." I yawn, "just a fact."

"We'll see bout that then." He whispers back as my eyes close.

"Peterpire?" I hear him shift in the dark, "I don't hate you."

"I know darlin, yeh was mad, it's ok."

"Hmm, mmmh, love you…" I mumble at him already mostly asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

It's cold in Maine.

I know I knew that but coming from sunny and warm Mexico, all I could think leaving the airport was, it's freaking freezing here.

Jasper and Ali are waiting for us at the luggage terminal, and Alice is shivering as much as I am, well she's vibrating in happiness, I'm shivering but you can't tell the difference as we are quickly hugging and rocking and talking all at once and ok so I'm shivering and vibrating but I blame Jasper who is projecting as he laughs at us and does the back slap hug thing men do with Peter before taking me from Ali to hug.

She hugs Peter, a huge tight, vibratingly happy Alice hug, and then turns to me and grabs my arm, "They'll get the bags, let's get you food!" I laugh and let her lead me away.

"So how have things been? I know we talked a little but barely, it's been months and months!"

"It's been a month." I laugh at her, "But I know, I missed you too!"

"How did the talking go?"

"Great once I stopped trying, I mean I sort of started to try to talk at him but it felt weird and awkward and I couldn't do it but as we were driving, we'd stop at these random places and he'd tell me about them and slowly things about him would just slip in, when he'd been there, what he liked, it was… natural."

"I knew he just needed time to relax." She grinned.

"We fought." I tell her, "Only once but it was bad but then he told me about his human family, a little."

"He did?" She asks quietly, "He hasn't told me anything, I mean, he's mentioned about being a Texas Ranger before but not his family. I don't even think Jasper and he talk about life before Maria except the fighting bit, the war and the aftermath and the Texas Rangers and the era in Texas in general since they were born only a decade and a half apart but not about that. I wasn't really sure he had family he remembered."

"It was a pretty bad fight and then we didn't speak for a couple hours and then it was like we were going to fight again but instead he opened up and I maybe told him I loved him but I'm not sure if I was dreaming that part."

"You haven't told him you love him yet?" She demands in a whispered hiss.

I blush, "It's never come up?" The statement comes out more of a question and I see her eyes roll so hard it's a wonder they don't get stuck.

"You mean he hasn't said it."

"Can we not talk about this, they'll be here any second."

"They'll load the bags in the truck before finding us." She informs me but lets the topic drop in favor of a new one. "I saw the Cullen's."

"You did?"

"Jasper went on a hunt with Emmett, you know that, and when I left you I went down and we spent a week with them and stopped on the way back to see Carlisle and Esme."

"Where are they?"

"Emmett and Rosalie are in Spain, Carlisle and Esme are in Ireland visiting with friends and Edward is, well I don't know where Edward is, Esme thinks he might still be in South America, tracking Victoria." She gives a delicate snort and another eye roll.

"They don't know she's dead?"

"Why should I tell him, he forbade me from even looking into your future." She huffed, "As if he got a say in the matter!"

"Alice?"

"Oh I'm sorry Bella, we never talked about that much did we. You never really seemed to want to talk about it."

"So you and Edward fought?"

"Fought, no not really, he dictated and I pretended to care what he thought and then ran off after Jasper and we circled back to you. I guess after they all got to Denali he decided he should track Victoria just in case, I saw the decision and mostly he was pouting, making him an even worse tracker than usual. The others stayed in Alaska a while and then Rosalie decided to take Emmett away to hopefully cheer him up and Carlisle and Esme left a little after that to visit other friends to hopefully cheer themselves up a bit. I don't think its working so well but they are doing what they can to distract themselves from thinking about and missing you too much."

"Everyone is ok?"

"Fine." She tells me rising and tossing out my trash as I see Jasper and Peter coming over. "We didn't mention you at all but they did. Rosalie was pouting because Emmett still missed you but has him almost convinced you're better off getting to live out your human life and she's blaming it all on Edward. Carlisle and Esme ended up bringing you up as well, each of them asking how Jasper thought the other was really doing and telling him about missing you and worrying about you and if they made the right decision listening to Edward. Jasper listened and they moved on to a new topic and we conveniently forgot to mention we didn't listen to Edward."

I chuckled with her, it felt a little good that they suffered missing me, that slightly hateful vindictive side, that I discovered when Chloe was here, was showing its heinous head again but I missed them and I couldn't help but be glad they missed me to, it hadn't all been a lie, just the Edward part and I'd made my peace with that doomed relationship.

"I'm glad they're all doing well. I do miss them."

"We can visit them if you want, we just didn't bring it up because we weren't sure you wanted us to, you've never asked about seeing them before, never seemed to want to talk about them at all."

"No." I shake my head, "Not yet, maybe after I'm one of you, a real Whitlock."

"You already are one of us darlin, don't get no realer than this." Jasper grinned at me as he helped me into the truck.

"I mean a vampire."

"Human, vampire, you are already a Whitlock." Alice told me shaking her head, "But I understand what you mean, so ok, no Cullen's yet. I didn't see us with them now anyways."

"No?"

"Nope, I saw a lovely Christmas, just the four of us."

"My last Christmas?" I can't help but ask.

"Don't be silly, I love Christmas, there is no last Christmas." Alice gasped.

"I think she meant human Christmas darlin." Jasper teased.

"Oh well we did find that lovely remote home in Northern Canada unless you prefer Peter's choice of diet in which case we also have a lovely home in Russia picked out." Alice shrugs, pretending nonchalance.

"You already bought homes?" I ask looking from one to the other.

"Not bought, just found, it has to be your choice darlin." Jasper smiles at me in the rearview mirror.

"We never talked about the change." I sigh happily.

"It hurts darlin, none of us will lie about how badly and you got a very small idea of it from James. It's three days of burning that feels like three hundred years."

"Yup." I swallow, "not looking forward to that", subconsciously I'm rubbing the scar on my wrist remembering the excruciating feeling of molten lava running in my veins.

"When you wake up, your throat is burning, not as bad as the change but it's a new kind of burning, your throat is sandpaper and it's the venom that burns as it goes down, like you swallowed a hot poker." Alice adds quietly. "The people around, if there are any, smell so good there is no control, no thought, you just feed." She shudders.

"It wont be like it was fer us, not even fer Ali, you wont wake to war or alone." Peter cuts in and I get the impression he doesn't like her warning me as though I might change my mind about it all.

"Thought came back to Char pretty quick." Jasper sends out a wave of calm, "Sometimes its like that but it still takes time and the instincts always seem to override rational thought. Peter's combat skills came through as a new born, he had and was led by the same instincts but could still seem to fight with purpose and skill that most aren't able to, that was how I convinced Maria to keep him."

"What were you like?"

"I had good survival instincts, like Peter, I fought well but my gift gave me an upperhand, so did Maria's growing obsession with me. When I was turned, she had no army when she found me, I made it for her, with my experience as a soldier and with my gift, I built her an army bigger than others could manage, I used my gift to inform her of others treachery. Peter was the first new born, first vampire aside from Maria, I felt any connection with, I didn't want him to die so I convinced her he'd be useful and loyal and he proved me right for decades."

"Until Charlotte." Peter sounds a little bitter as he turns to look out the window.

"You've always been loyal to me." Jasper assures him quietly.

"What do you expect from me?" I ask in the silence that follows this exchange.

"You already know what we are so hopefully it will be less confusing and like Peter says, you wont wake up alone, we'll be there to help you." Alice smiles, taking my hand in hers.

"The beginning is hard Bella, you'll be like, well like an infant, you'll have to learn how to move, how to touch things without breaking them, how to control your instincts and not throw tantrums when you don't immediately get your way."

"When my humanity starts coming back?"

"It's not your humanity, its rational thought, being able to know and understand and decide right from wrong, its nearly impossible to fight instincts that first year, you just don't know how. We wont let lose your humanity, Alice didn't lose hers because of her visions, Peter and I, we got ours back much, much later."

"Ok." I nod and the last bit of the drive is made in silence.

"What will happen to me?" I ask after Peter takes our bags from the back and we move to go inside the house.

"You'll be a vampire." Jasper frowns at me, "You'll learn control and we'll eventually be able to live how we want to again, like this or going to school or more travelling."

"I mean, what will happen to Bella Swan when I wake up… Bella Whitlock."

"We'll have to kill you eventually." Alice tells me gently taking my hand and tugging me inside to the couch.

"You wont be able to see your parents again but you can call and email them for a while, like you've done the past year, if it makes it better for you to have the time for goodbye."

I shake my head, "Is it better for them, for us, if I don't?"

"Yes." Jasper is honest and I appreciate it even as tears sting my eyes.

"For us, it will be easier, no pressure for you to come home or send photos in ten years when you haven't aged and no one to come looking for you when you haven't been in contact for a while. For them," Alice shrugged, "They'd know you were alive and ok." She tucked my hair behind my ear gently, "It's what's better for you Bella, fading from their lives slowly or breaking the tie completely, letting them mourn you and move on. You need to decide that."

"I think I'd like to just, leave things right now, they both have their own lives and families, I can just, fade out of theirs and then, if I need to, I can get sick or something." I look to Jasper for his approval and he gives me a half smile and nod.

"So the only thing left really is for you to be ready." Alice tells me holding my hand in hers still, "We have the place and the plan, well we will once you pick a diet option, and we can answer any more questions about the change and being a vampire, though really there isn't much we can explain, it just, has to be lived through."

"Will I forget my life?"

"Hold on to the memories you want to keep, try to think of them through the burning and when you wake up, try to think about those things often and when rationality returns completely, you'll have the memories, some more clear than others." Jasper explains gently, "We'll help you remember what we can."

"I think I'd like to be a vegetarian, I'd rather start out trying this way anyways."

"Canada it is." Jasper smiles and nods.

"Another freaking Bambi sucker in the family." Peter snorts shaking his head as he sits with us.

"You could always try it too Peterpire." He just snorts at me in reply making Ali and I both laugh.

"When?" Jasper presses gently.

"When can we go?" I whisper back.

"We can close on the house tomorrow, straight cash deal. My lawyer can deal with selling this house and the store." He shrugs, "Couple weeks maybe less."

I lick my lips and nod, "So um, ok, I guess, let's start packing or calling lawyers or whatever."

"Halle-fuckin-lujah." Peter huffs, "I'm goin teh pack."

"We aren't leaving for a few weeks." I remind him.

"Why we can't just bite yeh and be done with it." He grumbles.

"Who is biting me?" I ask momentarily distracted.

"That's up to you darlin." Jasper says as at the same time Peter and Ali insists, "Jasper."

I laugh at them and turn to Jasper, "Will you mind?"

"Of course not darlin, if you trust me to stop, I never had a problem with it in the south but I was drinkin a lot of human blood then."

"I trust you Jasper."

"Yeh'll stop." Peter nods.

"Ok, so" Alice bounces up clapping her hands, "We have Christmas in a couple days and then packing and moving and setting up the new house and a new born. It's going to be a busy year people."

I laugh at her, "Ok, I'm going to unpack."

"What for, we'll just pack up again?" Peter frowns at me.

"I have presents." I shrug.

"They'll just pack them up again."

"We're having Christmas Peter!" Alice stomps her foot at him.

"Besides I have presents for my parents to ship and some for friends."

"You got the humans here presents?" He asks me adorably confused.

"They are my friends Peterpire."

"Do I get a present?" He asks with a grin.

"Of course."

"Can I pick it?"

"No." I laugh at his mischievous smirk and leering wink.

We decorate the house and a tree, hanging stockings and sining Christmas carols. I call my parents and wish them happy holidays and then the day after Christmas I wake up and the decorations are gone and half the place is already packed up.

I laugh as Peter puts my duffle on my bed and starts the shower while I'm still stretching. "Things to do darlin." He shakes his head at me still lazing as he steps back into the room with coffee.

"Come shower with me?" He tilts his head and looks from my duffle bag to the bathroom and back before lifting me in his arms and carrying me laughing into the bathroom.

It takes us three days to pack up and close down the store and house another day to travel and two to move in, only because the furniture took an extra day to arrive. We ring in the New Year with Champaign, or at least I do, and my first hangover is going to be my worst and my last as Peter kisses me and hands me to Jasper who grins and whispers Happy New Year Bella Whitlock before sinking his teeth into my neck.


	10. Chapter 10

The burning. The never ending waves of pain. Who would ever choose this? I screamed out and begged them to make it stop, to suck out the venom, a painful process in itself but anything, anything to make this burning stop. The tiny flames I'd felt from the small bite of James was nothing, it was like comparing a paper cut to a stab wound, it hadn't prepared me, nothing could prepare you.

Think of my memories? How could anyone think of anything but this pain? Wave after wave of fire licking through my veins, it only grew hotter and hotter and I couldn't get away from it so I screamed, I screamed and screamed and begged them to stop it, to make it better, to save me. Three days, 72 hours, how could it be taking so long for so little time to pass, because time had stopped, there was no more time, only burning.

Peter held me against him, he never set me down and I begged him, begged him to make it stop. My back bowed and I heard bones snap as I struggled against the flames. Alice held my hand and mopped my forehead but I couldn't feel any of it, only the fire, the molten lava that had become my blood, the burning acid eating me from the inside out.

Vagueley I could hear them talking, my throat had become to horse to scream, the acid was there, eating away at my vocal cords.

"Think of Charlie Bella. Remember your father, he's a police chief." Alice would say and an image of Charlie came to mind, Charlie, he'd save me from this pain, I cried out for him but there were no words that came, only a strangled scream. "Renee and Arizona, remember you took ballet." She'd say.

"Focus on the memories darlin, on anything good." I heard Jasper urging me.

Good? Was there anything good beyond this torture? Was there anything but burning? I'd been selfish, I wanted to live forever with them and instead I was burning, burning in hell forever.

It got worse, the flames growing higher and higher and I couldn't take it, it had changed again, moved through me to encompass my whole body and now, now that it was at its hottest it was moving through me again, collecting all the heat together and flowing out of my limbs towards my body, the waves of heat coming together to grow hotter still as it moved out from each organ and into my heart. It's heavy beat sluggish and slow, I didn't care, I just wanted it to end, for the torture to stop, death would be welcome. White hot the fire seared into my heart and with a tiny quivering sigh my heart shuddered and stopped, with its final searing pulse, the fire ended with it.

I sucked in cool air and then stilled, when had my eyes closed? I wondered absently, was the pain over now or would the flames come back? Was I dead?

I felt a wave of love and blinked, "Hello darlin." Jasper was smiling gently at me and I felt tears in my eyes, no not tears, venom.

"Is it over?" I whisper, afraid and happy all at once.

He gives a small smile and gentle nod, "I'm going to come a bit closer alright?"

I nod and smile at him, "It's over." I repeat.

Jasper nods again and moves a little closer to me, "It's over darlin, you're one of us now."

I can't help it, happiness swells to me and I haven't even thought about how much I want to hug him when I'm off the bed, across the room and hugging him.

Jasper is chuckling, "Little tight there baby girl."

"Sorry." I blush and step back, no I don't, I raise a hand to my cheek, there is no heat to my skin, I only feel like I should be blushing. I'm a foot from him and look around in wonder before focusing on him. My breath hitches in my throat and escapes in a vocal whoosh. Jasper is… stunning. I stare at him a while, taking in the hundred shades of blonde in his hair, from whitish to golden to almost brown. His eyes are amber and gold with shades of straw and saffron. His skin isn't too pale, an almost ghostly white, but a blend of creams, ivory and beige all of this is offset by the silvery white crescent scars crisscrossing his neck and littering his arms. He stands perfectly still as I examine him, he's in a white tee shirt and black slacks with bare feet and I am surprised to see one of the scars on his left foot but not curious enough to voice the question, or too distracted to focus on just one I wanted to ask.

I move my gaze from him around the room, everything is like I remember it, but like Jasper, it's also more. Every color is not one color but many variations of color blending together, every fabric, every material is an intricate detail and I can even see a stitch on his tee shirt that has been missed and I know its so tightly woven, so small that I shouldn't be able to see it.

"It smells… cold." I whisper.

"Snow." He explains.

I nod and am at the window without thinking about it, "Alice and Peter?"

"She saw you waking up, Peter and I found it was better for new borns if only one were there in the start and with my gift we thought it should be me. Peter has scars too and Ali's never been around a new born, we weren't sure how you'd be."

"I'm…." I tilt my head in thought, "Amazed." I touch the dew on the glass of the window.

"So am I darlin." His words are whispered, not meant for me to really hear.

I turn to frown at him, "Jasper?"

"You're very calm, even with my appearance, not a trace of fear or anger, confusion or well anything expected."

"I'd never be afraid of you Jasper and you're… beautiful." I couldn't think of a word big enough to describe him, Jasper was… stunning.

"How are you feeling?"

I laugh and the sound shocks me, it's musical and soft but also rich and full, "Shouldn't you know?"

He nods once and I see a smile pulling at his mouth though he's refusing to let it spread, "Tell me anyways."

"I feel… I feel… wonderful." I sigh and then frown, "It was so bad Jasper." I whisper, "So bad and it wouldn't stop, it was so painful, so awful and it just wouldn't end." He nods and I feel the prickling of tears again, not tears I remind myself, venom. "I wanted to die." I admit. He just nods again and his expression is regretful. I'm lost in my own thoughts as I frown again, "It feels like so long ago now though, I remember it so clearly, the agony of each torturous second is there but it feels… far away. I feel, my body feels wonderful, strong, rested, I feel… perfect."

"You are perfect darlin, and its normal for the burnin to feel far away, you always remember it but it's another life, it's over."

I nod and turn to look back out the window, "Will Alice and Peter come back now?

"Not yet darlin, first we need to take care of the thirst, it helps to calm the instincts, you might be remarkably coherent but its better we still take a couple precautions."

Even as he says it my attention goes to the dry and scratchy feeling in my throat. "Thirst?" I frown and raise a hand to my throat, the scratchy and dry feeling is getting worse and it burns a little when I swallow.

Jasper nods and gives me a half smile, motioning to the balcony, "Shall we?"

"We're on the second floor." I remind him.

Jasper chuckles and laughs, "You aren't human no more darlin, first floor tenth floor, it don't much matter now."

I blush again, or rather move my eyes away from him and lift a hand to my cool unflushed cheek as the telltale sign doesn't appear.

As I land, perfectly in the snow I realize for the first time, what in the back of my mind I had already noted and discarded, my little feet were pale and bare. I was in leggings and a large shirt and as soon as I touched the plain black cotton, I knew it was one of Peter's.

Jasper gave me a moment, before sending me a wave of impatience and excitement. I looked up at him and he smirked taking off in a run. I chased after him and started to pass him, laughing as my feet ghosted over the snow and ice.

I turned laughing and dancing around as snow began to fall in giant crystalline flakes, Jasper just laughed and took my hand to spin me again, "You look like the Pixie every first snow of the season, like I imagine a child playing outside in it the very first time." He tells me when I stop twirling and grin at him. This makes me laugh more but his expression changes again, more serious now. "Listen, taste the air and focus."

I follow his advice and I can here the rhythmic pumping of a heartbeat, slow and steady, I can taste something musky and rich on the air, a scent of something wild. Before I've followed the thought through I'm running in the direction of my meal.

The blood is rich and warm, filling and soothing the burn in my throat. Jasper is fun and lets me be distracted as we roam the wild Canadian North. I examine the ground under some snow, leaves on bushes and bark on trees, he laughs but says nothing when I lick the snow falling out of the sky. I examine my own pale skin and the ends of my hair so he leads me to a frozen lake where I sparkle ever so slightly like the snow back at myself. How did people not notice the way we shimmered? It wasn't sunny now but my skin… glowed, why hadn't I noticed before? It was as if my eyes had not seen before I opened them to this life.

Alice is waiting when we get back to the house and I grin at her, before the thought registers I'm bolting across the rest of the distance to hug her the way I had Jasper. We're laughing and hugging and bouncing, our excitement made stronger by Jasper's amusement projected out around him.

Alice helps me discover the new world inside and I stroke the surface of every new texture, delicate like its all crystal. If I move to fast or don't think, I crush it all like it is the finest crystal but I try to be mindful and Alice hands me things and tells me to test my grip.

Time moves around us while I adjust to the sights, sounds and scents around me. Light fades and builds and fades around us, I feed again and I watch them hunt, each moment teaching me something new about the world and this new life.

"Where is Peter?" I ask as I watch the sun rising over the barren land and my skin begin to shine brighter, dancing and refracting rainbows like the snow.

"He went hunting in the cities further south." Alice answers coming to stand and sparkle with me. She's so beautiful it almost hurts to look at her sometimes.

"When is he coming home?" I ask her, then frown as a painful thought just occurred, "He is coming home?"

"Peter's waitin impatient for us to call him." Jasper assures me joining us but standing back in the shadows. He likes to be near Ali and I while I explore but keeps a bit of distance, standing back to watch us and absorb our emotions, projecting his amusement and love but mostly just, enjoying our happiness.

"Why?" I smile at my thoughts of him, my mind running along both tracks at the same time.

"You aren't like normal new borns." He shrugs, "Its like, well for us we really were new borns, opening our eyes to a strange new bright, hard world that we don't understand. You, you're more like someone locked away in a dungeon your whole life, stepping out in the sun, seeing the world for the first time, having known what the world was but not knowing. I think it's why you're calmer, you knew what was happening to you during the change so it was less of a… shock."

"So he's staying away because I'm different?"

"No." He shakes his head and projects affection to me, "He left because we wanted to give you as much time as you needed to adjust to what you are without overwhelming you. Vampires don't tend to be very social when they wake up, its more of a fight, feed and flee range of emotions. Alice saw you and came back but Peter chose to give you more space and wait until you decided you were ready for him to come back."

"Can he come back home now then?"

"I'll call him now and tell him you're waitin." Jasper nodded.

I grin at him and he laughs at the happiness and excitement that flows through me. Emotions are so strong as a vampire, I feel everything, even small things, with my whole being. It was no wonder Alice vibrated with happiness and was so excited about things, it was a wonder her tiny frame could hold any of these feelings inside at all.

It took Peter half a day to get to us from wherever he had been and like it had been with Jasper and Alice, it was like I was seeing him for the first time. His hair was shaggy almost to his shoulders but straight unlike Jasper's waves, but like Jazz it was every shade of blonde imaginable with strands gold, amber, honey, saffron and cream. His eyes don't match, they are brilliant reds that match mine, blood red, crimson, garnet and ruby. His skin is like Jasper and Alice and mine, creams and ivory and beige, littered with the silvery white scars that decorate Jasper's skin. I run a finger over one and smile at him, amazed that he's here and so damn sexy and mine. That is a very prominent feeling in my body, he's mine and I remember the hard planes of his form but I want to explore them now, now that I can really see and appreciate his perfection. Unlike Jasper he has a bit of rough scruff on his face, the permanent five o'clock shadow of golden stubble in slightly darker shades than his beautiful hair. His lips are a perfect bow, the lower faintly fuller and I want to nibble on it. I want to feel his large hands against my skin and tremble as I remember how it felt, imagining how much better it would feel now.

"Keep lookin at me like that darlin and this introduction'll be very thorough." He tells me, his voice low and rich and warm.

I swallow at the promise in them, or maybe it's a warning, I don't know and I don't care, all I can focus on his how much I want him, because he's "mine", all mine and no one else can ever have him.

He chuckles and I realize I've spoken outloud. The faint feeling like I should be blushing is there but it's a passing thought like so many other trails of thoughts always in my head, now all I care about, all I think about is Peter.

Vaguely I register Alice and Jasper leaving, he's chuckling and shaking his head and she's giggling. A wave of lust is coming from them but it barely affects me, its meant for them and my own lust is raging and my focus is still pinpointing on Peter and his every minute expression and movement.

Peter takes his time and part of me registers surprise by this. There is an animalistic lust burning inside of me but it's somehow, subdued, pushed behind a wall, like the little trails of thought always running through different parts of my brain.

He moves towards me and I stand perfectly still, watching him, his hips swing and he's watching me carefully, a smirk of lust and want and something more burning in his eyes. Each movement is slow and deliberate and I realize he's stalking me. I shiver in anticipation.

I shiver again as he stops, mere inches separating us and my senses are enveloped with his scent, every nerve ending of my body is tingling and and crying mine, mine, mine. I want to touch him, I want to trail my fingers over his cheekbones and kiss the scar on his jaw, trace the ones on his neck with my tongue, I want to rip the clothes hiding his body from me, I want to attack him at sate the low hot burning need building in my gut and spreading through my body, its hotter than the change but it's a different heat, a liquid pleasure, my body twitches with the need to touch him but I remain still, watching him, the animalistic force growling behind the wall in my head is practically rabid with the desire to have him, mine, mine, mine, it chants.

His hand raises and I can feel the caress even before the skin of his finger tips meets my cheek.

"So beautiful." He whispers.

I say nothing, as large as my mind is the only thought in it is, mine. Everything else is feeling, tingling, heat and desire. He's gentle and slow as he pulls my shirt, another of his, over my head. He explores my body like I explored the world, as though seeing it for the first time. He touches me like I touched everything I saw those first few days, as though it were the finest glass and my skin goosebumps and shivers. Finally, finally he pulls back and takes off his own shirt, he runs a hand down my arm and lifts my hand bringing it to his skin. He has almost as many scars crisscrossing his neck and torso as Jasper does, each faint silvery white crescent mapping out the web of his history. I trace each one, exploring him, there is still the part of me behind a wall in my head panting with an edge of possessive violence urging me to take and claim but the rest of my mind is consumed with fascination of each curve and dip on his body, the way his stomach muscles quiver as my fingers trail over different spots. I explore him as carefully and thoroughly as I explored my new world, until I've memorized all his imperfect perfection, I can close my eyes and map out his body down to the faintest scar, half buried under other scars and the tiny freckle, only one, on his hipbone.


	11. Chapter 11

We stay in the deep north of Canada for eight months, we passed the time with Jasper and Peter teaching me how to fight, Alice and I making jewelry or just playing like kids. Hide and Seek, Cops and Robbers, all kids games that leave us in hysterics. I have the odd feeling this is the first time I was able to do this, act young and free and just, play. I want to explore more of the world though, my mind is so vast and everything stimulates it and I want to know more, see more, experience more, so we go south, slowly from small villages to bigger towns and work our way up to the excitement and over stimulation of the cities. Jasper is convinced I won't kill anyone, that I'm a miracle newborn with super powers of control and wont have any problems with my blood lust. My thirst out there seems second to my curiosity and he and Ali have both had to remind me to hunt or I forget the dry ache of my throat altogether. Humans do smell sweeter, more appetizing than the musty smell of the animals we hunt but I can mostly ignore the thirst. At first I have to stop breathing and then I'm ok but slowly, it gets better, easier to ignore or push aside in favor of all the sights and sounds and smells surrounding me.

I kill someone in Montreal at ten months. I want to run and hide in the remotest corner of the world and never leave. They are all very understanding and I don't feel as bad since both Jasper and Alice had been struggling with the amount of spilled blood at the accident and I felt a lot better when it turned out the man I ate had been driving drunk and killed the woman and her young son in the other car. I would still always remember his name from the news, Eric Harden, and his bloodied face. Jasper says he would probably have died from his injuries anyways but I still counted it as a failure on my part and the worst day of my new existence. I had killed a man, drank his blood and loved it.

On the other hand I did refrain from killing the drunk bitch that groped Peter in a bar we went to and believe me, that was the hardest thing I've ever tested my control with, you know besides the bloody accident where I lost myself for a few minutes. Fucking slut had her hands rubbing him down in full view of an entire crowd and he was _mine_. Ok the crazy possessive bitch living behind the wall in my head could get a little loud sometimes. Once I told Jasper about her, he seemed to think it was my new born personality I'd somehow locked up, my vampire side, he says his demon is locked tight in a cage and it took a lot to get the fucker in there but I just woke up with mine all locked up tight in the corner of my head, except that one time, that one horrible time she got out and I ate someone. Guess super control really is a thing. Peter thinks its hilarious when she shows through, or "fan-fuckin-tastic" when she slips out when I'm horny. Blood, sex and blood are on my mind a lot, but everything is new and beautiful and I explore the world and everything in it carefully.

We have super speed and strength but endless time so what I find the most amazing is how slow we get to be. We run for the sheer joy of it but when we walk, we stroll, when we do anything it is carefully and precise and we take our time. Spend an hour staring a butterfly, no problem when it floats away I can move on to picking wild flowers, meticulously looking for and only picking the prettiest ones or lay back in the grass and watch the clouds float past letting time slip away. I always thought Alice worked making the jewelry we had at my pace and thought she must be bored sometimes but now, now I can spend twice as long on each piece, with no sense of urgency about anything, I grew careless with time, entire days could slip by with the only things to fill them, dancing in a meadow with Alice or walking through the woods or making love to Peter.

I email Charlie and Renee every once in a while, they are as bad as I am and though there is the we miss you so visit soon messages, they slowly get farther and farther apart until every couple weeks has become every couple months.

We left Canada after the slip I had with the car accident victim and moved south, skipping over the United States and Mexico to explore South America. I sort of remember Peter once telling me as a human that he'd spent time there and would show me all the places he'd been and I loved that he was keeping to that as if the offhand comment to human me were a promise.

Alice, Jasper, Peter and I are more than family, at this point they are like extra limbs and while I freely remind Ali and Jazz that I love them with words or flashes of emotion pushed at Jasper, I have yet to say the words to Peter. I know that I do love him, and I am pretty secure in the idea that he loves me too, we've just never talked about it. Sometimes I wonder if it's because he doesn't think I'm his forever but then the bitch in my head gets louder, growling mine, mine, mine and we go search him out to remind ourselves that, at least here and now, he is and he loves me.

He does talk more, laugh more, joke more, play more, I notice it about Jasper too and when I ask him, Jasper says it's partly because he doesn't have to live with the constant battle not to eat me anymore. I remind him that Peter didn't ever want to eat me and he just laughed and sent me a wave of amusement, "We're happy darlin. This is Pete and I, happy." I hug him because I'm happy too.

Alice explores everything with me, as if she's new to it all too, delighting in every little thing, she says its because its like she is seeing the world like I am, seeing it through me, "Besides," she chuckles, "I'm happy, everything is beautiful and bright and new when you're happy." Alice is good at being happy, she makes all of us happy too, delighting in anything from playing a new game to buying a new dress to a new view of the sunset. Life is beautiful and good and I am free in a way I never even thought to imagine.

There are latent human parts of my mind that make me scream and leap away from a snake or spider, things that throw Peter into fits of laughter. I love his laughter so I forgive him for laughing at me and usually just plead with him to kill it for me, pouting and playing damsel in distress even as I'm reminded I'm a vampire and no creepy crawly venomous beast can hurt me.

It's way out here that I see them again, Carlisle and Esme. We had wandered in South America for eleven months, crisscrossing the continent as we explored and then moved to a little outside Rio de Janeiro. Itatiaia National Park is close for Ali, Jazz and I to hunt and there is a buffet of criminals for Peter in the city. There is also music for Jasper, the theater for Peter, shopping for Ali and History for me. There is movies, museums, sports and dancing; I love dancing as a vampire, so does Ali and Peter loves anything let's him hold me indecently close in public and Jasper loves anything that makes us that happy so he doesn't mind the burn of his thirst, he says he's so wrapped up in our happy, its barely there on those nights and when I watch him dance with Ali or we all dance together, I believe him because he is happy and it leaks out of him though his smile and laugh as much as his gift.

We've been in the city a while when it happens. We went dancing at a club and are walking the beach, well Ali and I are still twirling and dancing, the boys are walking slowly behind us, Peter is playing music on his phone and Jasper is sending us out waves of amusement and giddiness and it reminds me of the feeling of being tipsy when I was human.

We're laughing and dancing and playing, kicking up the water as it splashes up to our ankles and I turn and run at Peter, jumping up into his arms for a kiss while Jasper twirls Alice. She stops abruptly and stares out into the distance, Peter lets me down and we wait for the vision to pass. When it clears I can't tell if she's happy or worried as she turns to look at me, "They're here."

"Who?" I can't even begin to guess what she's talking about, why she's looking at me when she says this and not Jasper or Peter. In the two years we've been together it's always just been the four of us.

"Esme and Carlisle." She whispers their names and long buried and foggy memories of my human life flow through my brain.

"Oh." I can't think of what to say, I'm not even sure how I feel.

"They'll be here in just a minute." She whispers.

"Ok." I whisper back, still not sure how to react. It doesn't occur to me until we see them to ask if they know I'm like them now. I don't need to ask though, their expressions clearly show their shock as they come out from the shadows of a hotel onto the beach and see us.

"Bella?" Esme's voice is almost silent.

"Hello." I wonder if maybe vampires can go into shock, I think I have and maybe they have too because they've stopped where they came onto the beach and we are still standing with the waves lapping up onto out bare feet, staring at each other and my mind is completely silent.

Peter wraps an arm around my waist and Carlisle seems to recover first, "How?"

"Jasper." I turn to smile at my brother and he sends me a wave of affection.

"When?" Esme is looking from him to me and back and her look is sad, disappointed as she gazes at him, "You attacked her. How could you do this? Why would you have gone back?"

"We never left." Alice informs them.

"He didn't abandon me, you don't just leave people you love, without even a goodbye." Peter's arm squeezes me gently but I don't need the comfort, I'm not angry, I'm not sad, I'm numb. Loving them is a distant memory, the pain of their leaving a foggy shadow of loss and sorrow. It's not for me that the thing behind the wall in my head is rearing her bad tempered head, it's for Jasper, there is a line of tension in his back that wasn't there before, the smallest curve in his shoulder, her words have hurt him and I don't like it, the part of me behind the wall, the one that only got out the once to feed on the man in Montreal, she's livid.

They don't seem to know what to say to that but Esme shakes her head and even without Jasper's gift I can feel the disappointment in her as she looks at him, "Why disrespect your brothers wishes, hurt him like this, how could you be so selfish?"

I don't fight it as the wall comes crashing down in my head. Peter feels the change in me instantly and the arm wrapped around me in comfort is now a restraint as I hiss and snarl at her like the wild demonic creature I am. I don't fight his hold though and Jasper is sending me waves of calm and love.

"Edward was selfish and mean and wrong. It was Bella who was hurt, Bella who was abandoned, left behind by the boy and the family who claimed to love her." Alice is the one to speak up, her eyes holding Esme's steadily. "Bella is my best friend, my sister. I said from the very beginning she would be, that she would be one of us. Jasper stayed, despite how much he blamed himself for losing control to your bloodlust, yours and Edwards and mine and all of ours. He stayed because I did, because I wont ever abandon my sister. We stayed and kept her safe from Victoria, we helped her heal from what Edward did to her and we let her make her own choices in life, including this. She chose it and Jasper changed her, because without her blood soaking the room from being tossed into glass plates, without six other hungry vampires flooding him with blood lust, Jasper did have the control to bite her and to stop and Bella gave him that chance, trusted him to stop."

It's quiet for a minute, "I…" Esme begins, she hesitates and tries again, "I didn't mean, I'm sorry Jasper, of course you wouldn't hurt Bella on purpose, we know her birthday wasn't your fault, it was all of us, we knew that, Edward knew that, that's why he asked us to leave, to let her live her life."

"It wasn't his decision to make, not for Bella, not for you and not for us. You let him make it for you, we didn't, we let Bella make her own choice and she chose us, chose this life." HIs voice is low, wounded and firm at the same time.

"Of course." Esme concedes the point and the argument.

"When was the change?" Carlisle changes the topic, diplomatic as ever.

"Two and a half years last month." Jasper informs them, later I'll remember to be surprised we'd been living in Rio three months already, now though its all I can focus on to put the wall back up in my head especially because Jasper is still tense and I can feel anger and anxiety in the lines of Peter's body as he holds me to him.

"We spent the summer on the island, thought we'd try to get Edward to come home this winter." Esme informs us gently, "Carlisle's taken over a private clinic in a lovely town in France. Rosalie and Emmett have even decided to come home." I know its meant as an invitation but none of us says anything in response.

"Go take Bella to hunt Captain." Jasper finally breaks the silence. I know he can feel the beast in me still raging, I am unable to calm it while my family is upset, while there is that line of tension in Jasper's back and in Peter's arm around my waist.

I feel rather than see Peter nod and he's pulling me away, so much stronger than me but I don't fight against his hold. I don't want to be here, I don't know how I feel about seeing them and I'm not sure I'm ready to figure it out. I just want to be away, to forget the confusing half remembered love and pain in my human life. I want to calm the bitch in my head still raging against the line of tension they put in Jasper's form and the anxiety in Alice's eyes, I need her to stop raging against the wall so I can think, so I can decide how I really feel.


	12. Chapter 12

We don't get far when Peter finds a place my wild side can take out her frustration on him, he spins me away ready to spar but I don't want to fight him, I don't need to fight him. I pull my dress over my head and the fighting stance disappears along with his clothes, more than happy to work out the anxiety in my body in this more pleasurable way. I don't need to hunt after but we go anyways and I take down something small.

The Cullen's are at the house when we return but everyone is calm, Jasper looks relaxed as they sit talking about my new born year. I go upstairs to clean up and put on new clothes, my dress had ripped when I yanked it over my head. I know I should go downstairs but I don't want to hear their apologies for leaving me, their excuses, their defense of Edward. Alice comes up to get me and we go down together, it feels like there should be tension but Jasper is influencing the mood in the room to thoroughly and I send me a tiny scowl making him chuckle.

"So." I turn to Carlisle and Esme, I'm not sure what to say, so I finally just blurt out, "How have you been?"

Peter is fighting back a smirk and Jasper chuckles while Alice rolls her eyes laughing out right, "I told you it would all be fine now." She exclaims moving to sit on Jasper. Peter scowls so I move over to him with a questioning frown, he just shakes his head and pulls me against his body, turning me so I can face out at the room.

We talk about what they have been doing the last few years and a brief pass over my last two years as a human and even briefer pass of this past year, mostly we discuss my new born year, my diet choice, the only slip I had and the crazy bitch locked away in my head who is still growling at them a little for having hurt Jasper, even that tiny bit and purrs at being in Peter's arms, I told tell them neither of these things though just that she's there and a bit violently inclined.

Carlisle agrees that I've somehow managed to wake up with her already under conscious control and beams at me proudly for my control as a proud father might grin at his daughters scholarly accomplishment or at winning an award. The comparison brings with it a tiny ache in my heart for the half remembered dreams of a life as his daughter. I lean back against Peter a little more and his arm tightens around me as if he knows what I'm thinking and is reminding me that someone does want me, that he is there and he loves me.

They stay for a few days though I spend little time with them and when I do its watching a movie or all of us doing seperate activities in the same room but talking little. When they leave they ask us to come to France with them, Jasper agrees only that we'll think about it and we part as friends. All in all it went better than I would have expected, if I had thought about running into them again at all anyways.

I don't want to move yet, we've just settled in one place and I am learning Portuguese, Alice and I are selling some of our jewelry to tourists and no one pays much attention to us or what we do, not like they would in a small town, where we'd have to blend in and conform more. Here no one noticed if we were out in the day or not, no one lifted a brow if we were out all night dancing or if we worked or cared at all what we did. We were just four faces in a crowd and I liked it. Peter did too, he had never had a desire to live with the Cullen's, partly I think it was his diet and their quiet disapproval of it, partly I think it was because he didn't care to pretend to be anything he wasn't, he'd wear the mask of humanity but he didn't give a damn if people liked him or not or if he fit in. He lived to please no one but himself, he never made excuses or apologized for who or what he was, he didn't care about anyone elses approval or opinion on his choices. Not that he was selfish, he cared very much about Ali, Jazz and I, seeing us happy made him happy, he could be rude to other people sometimes but was never mean, he just didn't care to conform to society, Peter just let himself be. It was one of the many things I loved about him.

Jasper didn't seem to be in any rush to rejoin them either but I wondered about Alice, I knew she missed them the most. Jasper had confided in me that though he loved them, he sometimes felt like an outsider in the family and my memories of loving them are foggy and distant, like another life, actually they were from another life. I think the only reason we considered it was for her but Alice was happy, we knew it, Jasper felt it, so when she suggested we stay here a while longer, we readily accepted.

Emmett and Rosalie came the next, this time we had warning as they called up Alice first. I was nervous to see them and Peter had been… off, since the Cullen's had found us. I couldn't really explain it, he was just a little more distant and it worried me but if I asked him if he was ok, he'd just shrug and distract me with something else. I knew he wasn't happy with Emmett and Rosalie coming and I wondered if he thought we'd change our minds and go back to live with the Cullen's. Would Peter go with us if we did? Would I stay with Peter while Alice and Jasper left? Would he ask me to? I wasn't sure I was happy they were coming after these thoughts occurred to me but they were already coming and things had already changed for my little family when we ran into Esme and Carlisle.

As soon as I saw Emmett, memories of him grew stronger and I could feel the traces of emotion I'd felt as a human, I had loved him and been both sad, angry and disappointed he'd abandoned me but those emotions still felt far away, like they belonged to someone else, I just felt the happiness at seeing him, the affection and warmth. Emmett was like Alice in that he loved to laugh and be happy and to play, it was fun having him with us.

Rosalie didn't seem to like me much better than she had in my memories, her expression was maybe a little less cold, her words held a little less bite and she didn't ignore me or avoid me completely as she seemed to in my few memories.

Nothing memorable or even notable happened during the visit, we went dancing, played on the beach, hunted, sparred a little with each other and spent time alone. We didn't talk about anything important or bond over anything in particular; it was just, nice.

They spent ten days with us before going off to join Esme and Carlisle in France and I didn't need to have Jasper's gift to feel how sad it made Alice to say goodbye. As each day passed she was a little less bubbly, a little less excited by things, she was missing them more and more.

"Are we going to leave?" I sigh and sit on the beach next to Jasper, Peter is hunting and Alice has gone shopping, leaving us alone for the rainy day.

"The beach?" He asks me picking up a shell from the damp sand and twirling it between his fingers looking at the sky, "Alice said it would rain all day."

"To bring Alice back to the Cullens." I clarify.

"She misses them, misses that kind of life." He agrees.

"I don't." I whisper.

"Peter will never be happy living that lie." He adds.

"Were you?" I almost demand.

Jasper shakes his head, "I'm happy when she's happy."

"That's not the same thing Jasper."

"I know." He concedes and we sit in silence for a while. "I miss their emotions. Rosalie's fierce love of the family, even her bitchiness, Emmett's carefree and childlike joy, his competitive nature, Carlisle's calm wisdom, his clear head and the motherly love of Esme. I love them Bella, even if sometimes its hard, we disagree and disappoint each other but we are a family and I miss them. Was I happy with them? Yes, most of the time, other times I was frustrated or angry or sad or any range of emotions."

"Are you still happy with us?" I ask after another quiet pause.

"Ali is a part of me, I can't be without her; she's… my everything. Peter is my brother and you are my sister but more than that, you are part of me too. I don't like the idea of being away from either of you, missing him was always like missing a limb, missing you will be like that too. Missing them, it's different; it's missing home, missing family, like you miss Charlie and Renee. You loved them, you were happy with them but this, you and me and Ali and Pete, we're something more than family, something more than happy."

"She's not happy anymore though, not like she was."

"She is." He contradicts me. "She is happy here with us Bella, she just, misses them more than she did, she's letting herself feel how much she misses them, instead of locking it away in a dark corner where she didn't have to think about it."

"I want Alice to be happy, I don't want her to hurt."

"I know." He nods, "It hurts when she's not happy."

"So are we leaving?"

"Can you be happy with them?" He asks me instead of answering.

I shrug because I don't know; "I loved them as a human."

"What is it darlin?"

"I don't feel like I'm the same person as I was back then."

"You aren't." He agrees, "You grew and changed and learned to be the woman you wanted to be, to make your own choices. You are confident and happy whereas before your shyness masked greater insecurities. You let Edward rule your life, every decision and desire was tempered by what he thought or liked or wanted. You had a habit of self-consciousness to the point of self-deprecation. You knew what you wanted but wanted it for the wrong reasons and wouldn't demand control over your own life. Now you do, especially with Pete. He makes no apology for who he is and in response you make none for who you are and the best part is, you don't even realize you do it. You want something you make it happen, you want to be a vegetarian you don't care that Pete snorts in disgust at the idea. I'll watch you with Ali and its like no one exists but the two of you, you dance and play and don't care how you look doing it. You tell people no and don't feel the need to defend every thought behind every idea. You make your decisions and though you know we are here to ask for advice or help, you don't expect us to make choices for you just because I feel what you do or Ali sees the future. You tell me the why behind what you feel and ask her about what she's sees without relying on her to rule your future. Edward's Bella never did any of those things."

"What if they don't like this me?"

"What if they don't?" He shrugs, "What if Alice doesn't like your dress, I don't like the club you choose and Peter doesn't like your diet?"

"Peter doesn't like my diet." I remind him.

"Does it make a difference though? Does it matter if he doesn't or if he did?"

"No." I agree.

"We love you Bella. We don't always agree or like the same things. That's ok. It's always ok and it's not something you've questioned for a very long time."

"It feels different with them."

"Old habits." He shrugs, "The feeling will pass, just don't let it control you, to make you into someone you aren't. If they love you and you love them, none of the little things will matter, just like they don't with me. Trust me, there are lots of things that make me stand out in the family, to make me an outsider but the love is enough to bind our family together."

"So we're leaving then?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"It's what Ali wants." I remind him.

"It is and I'll take her but what do you want?"

"To be with you and Ali, for her to be happy."

"Then I guess we're leaving." He nods.

"Jasper?"

"Pete will be fine, it's not the first visit he's made to the Cullen's for me and it wont be the last."

"He wont be happy though."

"He'll be happy if you're happy."

"But will I be happy if he's miserable?"

"Catch 22 sometimes I suppose." His words make me sad but after a moment of silence I feel a wave of affection blended with calm as Jasper chuckles and shakes his head, "Come on darlin, let's go for a walk and enjoy the rain."

Alice has already seen our decision and is bouncing and happy when we return to the house. Peter is outside sitting on the balcony, his eyes vibrant red as he stares out into the woods.

"Is it ok, we're going?" I ask him sitting down next to him and curling into his side, his arm wraps around me and he nods. "We can stay here if you want, follow Jasper and Alice later on." I offer, hoping he's say something, anything to indicate he is coming with us or wants me to stay with him.

"I like the Cullen's just fine darlin, a visit won't bother me." He finally speaks and I smile breathing him in.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to press but I hate the feeling that there is distance growing between us, that the knowledge that he loves me and wants me is somehow less steady now, so I press just a little for him to talk. "Something is bothering you though, it has been for a while."

"My girl sucks on Bambi, it'd bother any man." He teases, avoiding the subject, I smack his chest and he chuckles but we both let the subject drop. He doesn't want to talk about it now and I don't try to make him, Peter will talk when he's ready and never before, I can only hope when he does speak up, its with something I want to hear. We sit in quiet a while, like statues, watching as darkness falls around us and I let myself breath him in and get lost in the contentment of just being near him because if not forever, at least for right now, he's still mine.


	13. Chapter 13

Traveling takes a little longer for us since its nice out during the day and we need to avoid the sun but when we arrive at the old vineyard currently housing the Cullen's, I almost wish it had been longer. I've seen them of course but that was on our terms, at our home, now here I am, presenting myself to them for the chance to reject me again.

Jasper senses my inner turmoil and is sending small waves of comfort but it's Peter's hand on the small of my back that calms me. So what if they reject me, he and I will just move on somewhere new. Alice and Jasper would always love me, always be my family and I didn't need anyone but them and Peter.

Alice is doing her vibrating happy thing and skipping to the mansion, it's an old stone villa with lots of windows and little courtyards and the garden is beautiful, the home is beautiful and I like it even more than the harder cold modern lines I remember of the Forks house.

Everyone is here to welcome us, everyone. I stall not having expected Edward, clearly Peter hadn't either because he's gone as still as I have and through his hand on the small of my back I can feel his whole body radiating tension. Jasper's sending us waves of calm but Peter and I are frozen in place, or maybe it's just me and he's holding back waiting for me to move, I don't know.

Alice flings herself at Esme and then Emmett swoops her up into a hug, she moves on to Carlisle and Rosalie who've been greeting Jasper, all the while Peter and I are standing back, still completely frozen.

Alice moves on to hug Edward and it snaps me out of my shock so I move forward to hug Esme and Carlisle and Emmett, I nod at Rosalie who deigns to give me a small smile in welcome and then look at Edward but I'm not sure what to do or say so I just sort of frown at him and don't say anything and he doesn't say anything to me but it's clear that he was at least was expecting me and knew I would be coming as a vampire.

All the while my back is tingling where I am acutely aware Peter's hand had been. He's still standing back, watching all of us greet each other so I move back over to him and his arm wraps back around me, this time his hand settles on my hip and the bitch in my head likes the possessive feel of the hold, I just feel more at ease now that I'm beside him again so I send him a small smile in thanks and his hand tightens on my hip a moment before we turn our attention back to the others.

Esme ushers us all inside and shows us around the villa. They give me a room next to Alice and Jasper with Edward on my other side. Peter is the floor above with Emmett and Rosalie and I don't like it but don't bother saying anything, I'll be in his room or him mine most of the time anyways, like we were at home in Rio. Esme and Carlisle have their room on the floor below with his office and the main floor has the kitchen, living room, family room and dining room. Everything is warm and inviting and beautiful.

Once we've all looked around and unpacked, the sun is high. We don't have to worry about hiding out here though so I go outside and sparkle, exploring the property and laying in the heat. The others are outside as well, Alice is chattering away a mile and minute and Esme is smiling indulgently, clearly pleased to have her home. I'm still a little angry with her for the way she'd spoken to Jasper and though she welcomed him warmly, now her attention is only for Alice, its not unusual, Ali claimed most people's attention and Jasper didn't like to be the focus but watching them, Rosalie seemed the only one genuinely pleased to see him and not just because he brought Alice. Then I noticed Carlisle move away from the others to sit beside Jasper and I can hear them discussing a possible chess match and Carlisle is asking his opinion on something and I realize that he at least is also pleased to have Jasper back with him.

Days pass easily here, Carlisle drives into the town where he runs the clinic, Esme works on the garden and in the vineyard. Emmett plays at making wine. I don't know what Rosalie does with her time but Alice has begun designing clothes again and I keep making jewelry. I'm surprised when Rosalie takes an interest in some of it and asks me for a few pieces so I make something special for her and then for Esme as well.

It's peaceful here and we live around each other most of the time so I don't feel as suffocated as I thought I would. Edward plays his piano, plays chess with Carlisle or Jasper, reads in the garden or disappears to his room, he's around but we haven't spoken yet. I know he watches me and I wonder if he's waiting for me to speak first but I don't know what to say to him, I'm not even sure how I feel about seeing him, so I don't say anything.

I miss the days of it just being the four us though because I do feel a little like an outsider, its easy being with them, everything falls into place in my heart and I love them, they are my family every bit as much as the human me dreamed but nothing is as perfect as I used to believe it would be. Alice is happy and that makes me happy, she loves everyone and the differences in all of our personalities, she is an extrovert and a people person. Jasper and I, not as much, Peter… not at all. Jasper has always been content to sit back and watch her, basking in her joy and letting the whirlwind that is Alice spin around him. He is quiet and content and she is boisterous and always going. Peter is used to being alone, what's more, he likes to be and if I feel like an outsider, I can't imagine how he feels. I know he feeds because his eyes go from vibrant reds to maroon to vibrant red again but unlike the social aspect of the way the Cullen's announce they are going out and asking any and all to join, he slips away and comes back quietly. He disappears a lot and I miss him.

I realize that even surrounded by all the Cullen's I'm lonely. The angry bitch behind the wall in my head is also turning out to be as pouting and petulant as she is vindictive and violent, reminding me Peter hasn't touched me since we left Rio. Oh he's touched me, the small of my back, a squeeze of the hip as he goes by, one afternoon he drew circles on my calf as it rested near him as he read, but no joining me in the shower, following me on a hunt to tear up the woods, no sly smirk and wink with a nod to the stairs and no kissing. So I'm lonely and horny and scared he's maybe bored of me and the bitch in my head isn't helping calm me at all.

It's only been a week, but a long week and I huff as I sink into a chair in the living room, earning me six curious looks and a knowing smirk from Jasper.

"Aren't you going to help?" I hiss at him. Jasper just lifts his eyebrow at me. I growl and he laughs. "Alice?" I turn sad eyes on her but she seems as confused as the rest of them.

"What's wrong Bella?" Esme asks gently. I'd come to the conclusion over the week that her reaction over my change was tied to her excessively codependent relationship with Edward and not any real dislike or judgement of Jasper. She truly did love them all as her children, she just played favorites. Edward was the favorite, to both of her and Carlisle, he was the first son, the pampered prodigal but regardless of how detrimental I thought that relationship was, I'd decided to forgive her for her initial treatment of my brother. Well I liked her and the remembered human love I'd held for all of them was growing into real affection but the vicious part of me had decided to let it go, this once, as well, she was a little grudging about it perhaps but the happier Jasper seemed the easier it was.

"Nothin." Jasper tells her shaking his head and turning back to me "Go and sort it out yourself darlin. You'll feel better facing it front on."

"Fine." I huff at him, and then give him a pleading look, "Just a little help?"

Jasper laughs and shakes his head, but sends me a wave of comfort and determination, "Go for a run, you always thought better at the beach in Rio, maybe you'll find the answer there."

I sigh and get up to leave. The others all look confused and Alice is dazed, clearly searching my future for answers. Its dusk so I walk across the property thinking until the sun is low enough I won't attract attention and then take his advice and point my feet towards the ocean. Peter is sitting on the sand looking out at the waves so I move over and sit beside him, Jasper knows me to well sometimes.

"You don't like it here." It's a statement more than question so I don't expect an answer as I lean my head against his shoulder.

I'm surprised that after a moment he does respond. "I don't belong here."

I want to believe he means France but I know he doesn't. I want to tell him he belongs with me but I don't. "Will you leave?" Venom is burning my eyes and I want to beg him to take me with him, the bitch in my head has gone back to growling possessively, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

"I'm nomadic by nature." He reminds me.

"What about Jasper?" I say but what I really want to ask is what about me?

"We will always be brothers."

"It's only been a week." I remind him, "We can all go together later."

"Alice belongs here and the Major belongs with her." He disagrees.

"So you're just going to leave us? Leave me, like a discarded toy you got tired of playing with?" I demand sitting back from him and I hate that we're going to fight, that the first time I'm alone with him in a week, we are going to have our second real fight.

"I don't want to fight with you Bella." He growls at me. I don't want to fight either but and the knowledge that he's going to leave me hurts more than the change itself. It's a wave of anguish that's washing through me, crushing me.

"Fine. Just leave. I don't care anyways." I'm up and about to bolt but he's up and grabbing my arm before I can go. I lash out at him, fighting against the pain, "I hate you." I spin on him and shove his chest. I might be faster but he's still stronger and I might as well be human for how much the action affects him.

Peter doesn't say anything, just yanks my body into his and is kissing me. It's brutal, demanding and passionate all at the same time. When he pulls away, it doesn't matter that I don't need oxygen, I'm panting. He growls at me and shakes me a little, "I love you." Then he's kissing me again. I want to tell him I love him, ask him to take me with him, to never leave me but the bitch has broken the wall and she's growling as she takes over, kissing him back just as hard and demanding, yanking at his jeans so the button flies off and they slip over his hips. He's already ripped my panties from under my dress so I do the same to his briefs and he lifts me in his arms, sinking into me and dropping us back into the sand.

The bitch in my head is chanting mine, mine, mine, mine, while the other part of me keeps repeating I love you, I love you, I love you. We're fast and rough and I tear his shirt off to run my hands over his skin, he growls when I nip his shoulder and thrusts harder, I scream and I'm not sure if one of the voices in my head has started chanting out loud or maybe its both of them as I begin to repeat his name, "Peter, Peter, Peter." The last is a scream as I clench around him. He nips at my neck and then kisses the spot before pulling back and sitting up to look around.

"Peter?"

"Get up." He orders jumping to his feet and pulling up his jeans, they hang dangerously low on his hips, held up only by the zipper.

I want him again but his expression is dark and his attention isn't on me anymore, "Pete?" I whisper straightening up my dress.

"We need to get back, now."

"What's happened?"

"Got a bad feeling." He takes my hand and starts to run but stops as we hit the edge of the beach to turns to me, "I wasn't gonna leave yeh unless you chose to stay, I won't leave yeh until you decide yer done with me."

"I'm not, I won't." I lean into him, "I love you."

"I know darlin and I love you but let's not start makin promises you wont keep now." He goes to run again but I'm still so our arms yank a bit. He turns back to look at me with a frown.

"Why?"

"Why what?" He demands.

"Why do you assume it's a promise I won't keep? You said the same thing when I was human."

"Women leave." He shrugs, "Best we don't fool ourselves about it."

"Edward left me, I didn't leave him." I remind him, it isn't always a woman who walks away.

"Well he's here and he wants yeh." Peter growls.

"I don't care what Edward wants." I hiss at him. "Why can't you just accept that I'm not going anywhere, we're mates and I love you damn it!"

"I thought Charlotte was my mate too and she wasn't, eventually we'll fight more'n we love and you'll go."

"I'm _not_ Charlotte!" I hiss at him.

"No, and I ain't Edward and I don't fit here, I wont ever fit here so maybe yer mad now, makin him sorry he hurt yeh but he'll make it up and I'll do somethin to piss yeh off and you'll run back to him or maybe I'm wrong and you'll meet someone else, who'll fit with yer perfect little Vegetarian family."

"Jesus Pete, would it make that much of a difference to you? Then fine, let's run to Paris, I'll find some rapist prick and my eyes will be as red as yours!"

"I don't fuckin care what color yer eyes are! Suck down a skunk if you want to!"

"Then what Peter! Are you projecting your shit onto me? Pushing me away and waiting for Charlotte to come back?"

"Charlotte ain't comin back, she's got a forever mate."

"You still love her!"

"This ain't about me and it ain't about Char. Course I love her, we're family, she ain't my mate and it hurt like all hell but you don't just stop lovin someone cause it ain't forever."

"You want to leave me Peter, leave. That's what you told her isn't it? If we're not forever then just fucking leave." I spin and run from him, this time he lets me go.

I know he's following me, but I'm faster and he's not trying to catch me anyway, he had a feeling and something was wrong, our shit could wait.


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey all, thanks for all the great reviews, had this edited and ready to post and after reading all your messages I couldn't hold out until morning so I hope you enjoy...**

"I didn't see." Alice is waiting for us. "Or well, I saw to late, he decided to follow Bella to talk and then he saw… they all knew there was something between you and I know he knew but I don't think he really realized. Jasper and Carlisle are with him now. I think it's all going to be ok."

"Alice?" I ask her going to hug her small frame, wanting to erase the worry in her eyes.

"Edward followed you to talk, saw you two fucking like bunnies on the beach and threw a tantrum." Rosalie clarifies.

"Oh." I frown, I had been so wrapped up in Peter, I hadn't had any sense of our surroundings at all.

"Is he alright?" I ask Alice.

"He'll be fine." Jasper answers coming out of the woods, he looks like he's been fighting. Jasper just shrugs at my curiosity. "He needed to work it out a little. He's calm now and Carlisle is with him."

"Oh." I'm not really sure what to say about any of it.

"He still loves you, it's hard for him." I just nod, a bit confused, Edward hadn't spoken to me since we'd come, he'd left me, abandoned me with hateful words of being a worthless distraction. Vaguely I remembered it happening, remembered the pain but it was so far away, like loving him, a bittersweet memory of another life.

"Should we leave?" I ask Esme after a moment. Maybe it would be better for him, easier, if he didn't have to see Peter and I together. Then another part of my mind reminded me Peter was leaving and I wasn't sure it was with me, wasn't sure we even were together anymore. The bitch in my head is back to chanting mine, mine, mine, mine and my heart feels like its breaking, crying out that it loves him, a small part is already missing Jasper and Alice not wanting to leave them, another is a little sorry to say goodbye to the Cullens, another is a little happy Edward is suffering a little of what human me had felt. I was a swirling mass of emotions and confusion, it was giving me a damn headache.

"No, no of course not." She smiles at me, "It will be alright, he just, he was surprised. We, none of us realized you two were, I mean, we knew there seemed to be something but didn't know and we did warn him it's just…"

"We thought you were fucking not in love." Rosalie clarifies with a roll of her eyes.

"Well it's none of his business." I don't like her tone, don't like that they feel it's any of their business, it's not Edwards or Esme's or any of theirs.

"He just loves you so much Bella." Esme gives me a sad smile.

I shake my head in denial, "You don't do what he did to people you love."

"He did it to protect you." She argues, "He loves you."

"I don't love him." I'm blunt and a flash of hurt and sorrow crosses her face, so I add on, "Human me did, I remember loving him and I remember being broken by him but I got over it and I don't love him." It's quiet, no one seems to know what to say so after a while I sigh and turn to Jasper, "We're leaving, it's better if we leave." He nods and sends a wave of understanding and love. I move past them to my room and begin to pack up my duffle, it doesn't take long and when I come out Edward is in the hall.

"You don't have to leave."

"Yes, we do, Peter's not happy, he wanted to leave before this and what we have is no one's business but ours."

"Do you really love him, or was that… part of… is it just physical?" I had already come to the conclusion that I had called out more than his name but I wasn't sure if it had been the crazy vampire bitch and her _mine_ or the other part crying out _I love you _that had made it past my lips. Now he had confirmed it, I wondered what Peter had made of the slip.

"I love him." I don't mean to hurt him but it's the truth and while I haven't spoken the words to Peter, they aren't a slip of the tongue but a simple fact and the possessive bitch in my head is in full agreement.

"I, we, I still love you Bella, we could…"

I'm already shaking my head, "You love the girl you tried to make me into, the girl I tried to be for you but she was a lie. I changed after you left Edward, I got stronger and I fell in love with someone else, that love carried into this life, grew stronger. The one with you, it's a weak memory, an ideal of what love and romance is in stories but neither of us was happy."

"He makes you happy?" His voice is doubtful and full of scorn for Peter and the demon behind her wall doesn't like it.

I keep her locked tight as I meet his eyes, "You know we were fighting tonight, Peter and I" I shrug at him, "It was the happiest I've been all week, just because I was with him. So yes Edward, he makes me happy, being with him, makes me happy because no matter who I am or what I'm feeling, what I do or say or how I act, bad mood, good, silly, contemplative, argumentative, insecure, any mood I'm in, it's ok with him, he accepts me, loves me and makes me happy."

"He's not right for you Bella, he's antisocial with violent tendencies and…"

I cut him off before the bitch in my head gets loose, "I'm never going to leave him Edward. I love him. Accept it or don't, I don't care because as far as I'm concerned, he is my forever and the only one that gets an opinion on that is Peter, not you, not the other Cullen's, not even Jasper and Alice." I turn and walk away, everyone is silent downstairs and I know they've all heard, including Peter who is a few feet apart from the others.

"I've never been to England and I'd like to see Jane Austen's house." I tell him. Peter nods and lifts his own duffle from the floor by his feet. I turn to the others, "Thank you for having us, I hope we see you again." I get polite nods from Esme, Carlisle and even Rosalie, her smile seems a bit warmer than it's ever been but her expression is a mystery. Emmett pulls me into one of his giant bear hugs and then I'm in Alice's arms. Jasper hugs us both to him and I feel him kiss the top of my head.

"Like losing a limb." He whispers, I nod and venom is burning my eyes. I step back and they take turns hugging Peter and then I hug them again.

We run in silence for a while, until dawn starts to light the sky, we luck out and it's a grey cloudy day so we can go into a town and rent a car, for now though, we've slowed to a walk and I can't keep myself from asking, "Are we going to talk about it?"

"Which it?" He asks.

"The fight."

"You and me, Jasper and Edward, you and Edward or the one me and Edward are bound to have at some point down the line?"

"I, um, all of them?"

"You and me are fine, least ways I figure we are. Fine enough to keep for now anyways. Jasper and Edward, mostly they was just sparring. Ed was pissed at the Major for not letting you have the life he left you to have, that the Major let me near you, that he changed you and that he didn't stop me corruptin and taking advantage of you. Little prick can be pissed all he wants, it weren't none of it up to him and the Major can take him easy enough so can I and if he starts with me I won't be nice about it like the Major and he will start with me about it eventually so there is bound to be a fight. As for you and Edward, well that I reckon circles back to you and me."

"And?"

"And nothing." He shrugs and it makes me want to scream at him in frustration.

"Do you still get a feeling about me? Like you did when I was human."

"To bite yeh? No, not now you aren't so breakable. To love yeh, every fuckin time I look at yeh."

"Do you get a feeling, like we're mates?"

Peter sighs and moves over, leading me into a field, he lays down and looks up at the sky, patting the ground beside him. I drop my duffle and take the invitation, staring up at the clouds moving across the sky.

"I get a feelin, like you're mine." He breaks the silence after a long pause. "It's possessive and there is an edge of violence in it, not at you but at the world. I felt it when you was human but it just blended with the fear for you and all the things I couldn't control to keep you safe. Now I'm still afraid, but not because yer breakable."

"Why then?"

"Can't explain it really, its just this dark possessive edge that says your mine and ain't no one else can have you but the fear is there too, that you might leave, that you might not want teh stay with me, that we aren't mates, but that thought just makes the possessive part of me worse and I'm angry, angrier than I've been since I left Maria and that place was all hate and anger and death."

"I have that too." I admit, my voice soft. I don't know why we're whispering, there is no one around to hear us but talking about this feels like telling a secret, the last parts we have held back from each other and secrets are whispered.

"A possessive side?" He asks, and I can hear the confusion, "I know, I like that part of you, makes me feel likin yer mine but this ain't like that darlin, this is, this is from the bad part of me, the real vampire part, this is from the Captian, Grim Reaper, dark side of me, I keep locked up tight."

I sigh and turn, curling on my side to face him, he's looking up at the sky and his expression is impossible to read. "I know. She's like that to, the bitch in my head, ever since I first saw you, in this life, all she can think when she sees you is that you are hers, ours, it's dark and its violent and she scares me but its so hard to fight her, to keep the wall in my head up, when I agree with her."

Peter finally turns his gaze from the cloudy sky above to look at me, his body follows so he's on his side facing me like I am him, he doesn't say anything for a while, instead he's searching my eyes as if looking for answers. "You mean what yeh said to him about fightin with me? Or maybe just didn't like him tellin yeh what to do?"

I can feel a smile pulling at my lips as I nod, looking deep into his ruby eyes, they're to dark for having fed so recently, "I love you, I'm not leaving you but part of me is terrified that you will leave me. Especially after coming here, I missed you all week, you were right there but you weren't and I hated that. I don't want to fight with you but I will because yes I am happier fighting with you than not being with you."

"Bell…"

"I don't care if this is hard. If you drink people and I hate the idea of killing someone, if you hate staying in one place and I want to have a home and be part of a family, none of it matters, we'll make it work, if you love me, if we're mates, we'll just… figure those things out."

"I ain't good at it."

"What?"

"Talkin."

"I'm not so much either, not about how I feel anyways but we'll figure it out, maybe we'll fight because of it but I'm not going to leave you and I need to know that you aren't going to leave me either."

"I ain't."

"I mean it Pete, I meant what I said earlier, if we aren't forever, we should end this, before it breaks us both and hurts Jazz and Ali with us."

"I ain't gonna leave you darlin, not unless you tell me to."

"No." I shake my head at him, venom burning my eyes, "I wont leave you Pete but we will fight so if this is it and we are forever, I won't let you go, not ever and you can't let me go either. We hold on to each other, hold on for each other and it'll be ok."

He shifts me into his arms and holds me, its like the first time I saw him as a vampire, like I'm the finest crystal and I know I'd be crying if I could and I think he would be too.

It's a while before we pull apart and he kisses me, I want more but he pulls back and looks me in the eye again, "Marry me?"

I can't fight the grin, the bitch in my head is purring, yes, mine, forever, mine, every part of me is in complete agreement with her as I nod, "Yes." I repeat the answer between kisses as he claims me, with promises of forever, there in the grape field as rain begins to slowly fall from the cloudy French sky.


	15. Chapter 15

Peter and I do go to England, we see Jane Austen's house in bath, a rendering of Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe theater, we see Wicked and Phantom of the Opera as well and visit Stonehenge. We go dancing and take tours on cloudy days but mostly, mostly we lock ourselves in a hotel room in the countryside and probably give any neighbors or workers a complex about our stamina. We spend two weeks in England, discussing getting married, between rounds of celebrating but I make one terrible mistake, I announce the news.

Ali and Jazz are ecstatic, Emmett seems happy for us and we even get congratulations from Esme and Carlilse. I hear something break over the phone and know that Edward's heard as well. Rosalie seems to be laughing and I think maybe she's a little bit of a vindictive bitch but I don't want to judge, I don't know what is all between her and Edward and I have a vindictive, possessive crazy bitch of my own in my head though these days she's pretty quiet, purring in content every time Peter touches me, which is all the time.

Telling them isn't the mistake, no, I go and forget that I'm a damn vampire and that I'm not close with my parents for a very good reason, and without thinking I call up and tell my mother, my human mother, my human mother who has no freaking clue about vampires or that I became one a few years before. Of course I haven't seen her in all those years, just sent emails so she's heard a little about Peter but had no idea we were serious let alone met him and now she wants to, is demanding that I come home for a long over due visit.

She excitedly tells _everyone_ including my also very human, not in the know, father who also wants to see me though he only asks if maybe I might visit but doesn't pressure me to. Phil does and everyone in Forks hears the news and I get messages from everyone I went to school with, even though we weren't great friends and they are all human and I am so very not, at least I am so very obviously not the same Bella I was in high school. My skin is to pale, my hair is richer, fuller and the brown has shades of red mixed into it. My waist is a little smaller, my hips a little rounder and my bust, ok that's the same but I'm half an inch taller, my eyes are golden instead of chocolate and my skin is frozen granite.

I freak out for almost a full day, Peter can't decide if he's amused or worried and I want to screech and stomp my foot at him in frustration because he is not helping at all. Of course the Pixie always knows when I need her so I only have the day to freak out before she and Jasper are there, her with an amused smile and him with waves of calm.

"Everything is going to be fine." She assures me as soon as I open the door. Then she's laughing and squealing and hugging me, "You're getting married!" She's doing the vibrating happy thing and Jasper's wave of calm is tainted by his own joy and amusement at us so I'm almost as excited as she is when we finally pull out of our bouncing happy hug.

"No big party." I tell her pretending at being stern but I can't pull it off because the grin stretching my face just will not be suppressed.

"Come on!" She gasps, "You only get married once, well you can get married again but you only get one groom and you only get your first wedding together once! It's the most important one!"

I laugh at her and shake my head, "No, no parties."

"But you aren't human anymore." She pouts, "No paper cuts or hungry vampires, ok maybe hungry vampires but you wont be tempting for the menu!"

I laugh with her and Jasper is shaking his head and chuckling at us, I know Pete is amused to but he's holding back his smile. He's leaning against the dresser with his arms crossed in nothing but loose jeans, they're loose because I ripped off the button and he only has two pairs, the other lost their button on the beach so now they cling, precariously low on his hips, held only by a zipper. He looks adorable and sexy all at once and I want to jump him again but I push the lust to the side and give Jasper a little shrug and wry smile as he moves to sit in one of the chairs beside the window, amusement rolling off of him as he shakes his head at me and grins.

"Who would we even invite to a party Ali, it's just us and you two, we can just get a license and a justice and go to the park or something."

Alice gasps like I've spoken the worst kind of blasphemy, "You have to have a real wedding Bella! You're a vampire, you'll remember it in perfect detail forever! The dress has to be perfect and the location, it can't just be in any old park and of course there will be guests. The Cullen's will want to be there, even Edward will stop pouting and brooding and come to wish you well, trust me I'll make him and Jasper will make him behave. Then there is the Denali's, you don't know them but they are like cousins to us so they will be to you eventually and why not start that bond now? Besides Peter knows them as well as anyone he's associated with, except Charlotte who of course will have to be invited with her coven and a few nomads, Garrett for sure and your mother will never forgive you if she doesn't see you married, Charlie too but we'll have to figure out how to go about that since you are a bit different but so much time has passed it should be ok for them, contacts in the eyes and you're a bit pale but that's fine, we'll figure that out, you are definitely controlled enough to socialize so maybe Angela and your other human friends from Forks and Bar Harbor." She's clapping and jumping and vibrating with excitement and though I want to protest, her happiness is infectious, or maybe that's Jasper again so I say nothing as she rambles on about cake and flowers and how perfect everything is going to be. "Don't worry Bella, you will love the wedding and so will Peter, it will be everything you two could ever want, even with all the people, I mean it will only be one day and all people one of you loves or will love in the future so it will be ok, I promise." She reassures me.

I nod because I believe her, in her excitement and love of this kind of thing she will take the lead but she wont take over well she will but she wont run roughshod over me and Peter in the process, she'll make sure it is perfect for us right down to the very last detail. There is only one thing I am really worried about and I know Jasper knows it as Peter leaves to hunt and he sends the Pixie out to get wedding magazines and samples so we are alone in the hotel room.

He doesn't say anything for a while though, he just looks at the cracked and broken plaster behind the dresser and lifts an amused brow, I shrug and give him a wry smile before moving to sit on the end of bed. He laughs as he looks at me because it's on the floor, legs broken off on each side and the mattress still dips where the frame gave out. I shrug and chuckle with him, "We were celebrating."

"A lot." He agrees with a wink.

"I love him so much."

Jasper nods and sends me a wave of affection and happiness, "I couldn't be happier things worked out the way they did, you and he bein mates." He shakes his head, "Almost wished I'd known it sooner."

"I think it all happened the way it was meant to."

"Darlin?"

"Edward needed to break my heart Jasper, so I could understand him, understand how much she hurt him, even just a little." He seemed to be thinking about that as he just nodded. "So now everything is as it should be and we are together and its forever so we'll get married and be happy and love each other all eternity."

"You can tell Ali no about the wedding."

"I know." I nod and then sigh, "I'd like the wedding." I sort of chuckle as I roll my eyes, "I have this hazy memory from being human of thinking I wouldn't want to get married and I remember hating the fuss of parties and any attention being on me but I also remember having fun and not caring about people looking at me on that road trip we took, Ali and I dressing up and just having funk not caring who was or wasn't looking. And since I've been changed, well I'm sure I looked pretty silly stroking trees and whatnot when I first woke up but I don't care, I don't care if people stare at us when we go dancing either, I guess I just don't mind the attention anymore or don't care to worry about it. I'm still not big on the fuss but I know she'll only make the day special for us, she wont go crazy and turn it into something we wont like."

"So what has you upset? Is it still about your parents?"

"I'm not human anymore Jasper. Maybe I should have let them believe I was dead from the start, I didn't even think when I called her and I know my control is good and Ali thinks it will be alright, but will it be? Could it be?" I sigh, "I don't think I want them there." I shake my head sadly, "I remember them so well, so much better than any other part of my human life, my mother especially but I'm not the same, it's not just being something different, I am someone different and its not like they won't love this me or I don't still love them or wish I could have them in my life, it's just, they don't belong in this world. I think, I think maybe I should have let them go only I was still human when I made the decision and I loved them so much, I do love them its just… I think I shouldn't have told her, I should have said goodbye and now I don't know what to do, what's the best thing here Jasper? Do I invite them to the wedding? Give them a glimpse of a world they have no part of, a world that's so dangerous for them so that I can see them again? Isn't that selfish? There is no one from my human friendships I care to be with us, I cared about them but I've moved on from who I was then, I let them go the moment I decided it was time for this but I couldn't let go of my parents and now, now I feel like it was a mistake, like I should have. It was selfish to hold on to them but I just love them so much, more than just the memory of loving them, I still love them. So what do I do? Could it really be ok?"

"I don't know darlin, your situation, it ain't like any other vampires, its new territory for all of us. It would be bad, very bad for them to know what you, what we all are, it was bad for you to know as a human, it was against the rules and it could have spelled trouble for all of us and your death."

"I know." I sigh and play with a thread on the comforter. "What should I do?" I ask him, not looking at him now.

"Well now, I had an idea about that."

"What?" I ask looking at him, nerves, excitement and worry warred inside me.

"I think you and Pete should visit your mother, then maybe head out to Forks as well. See how that goes, then you can invite them to the wedding or at least get your goodbye, let them meet Pete and see how happy you are so they can remember you like that."

"What if something happens on the visit, what if things don't go well, what…"

"Ali will watch out for you while you're there. She doesn't usually go looking into our futures, its better if we all live our lives in today but she'll always help us follow a better path when she can, always watch after us how she can and she will watch your immediate future like a hawk while you need her to so she'll catch every small change from every little decision. I can't make any guarantees but I can be almost positive it will all be fine. Go see your mother, let her see you happy, give her that much and then, if its the right thing, invite her and Phil to the wedding and if its not, say your goodbye. Then move on to your father, it will help you to see them happy too Bella, to have that one strong, clear memory for all the rest of your eternity."

"Ok." I agree with a sigh. I think I'm relieved but I don't really know yet. I don't have time to think more about it, or at least not to focus on the thoughts because Alice is back and I think she's bought every wedding magazine ever made and there are books and a white box she calls a wedding planner album.

Peter comes back amidst the chaos but refuses to help so he and Jasper go spend time together, leaving Ali and I to plan the wedding. Hours pass as we discuss ideas for everything and I begin to get excited about having an actual wedding and witnesses that will see us bind our love together forever.

I want it classic and simple and beautiful, nothing overdone, it's just not us and Ali and I tear out pages from magazines and jot down notes until my planner album is full and almost every detail is planned. It takes us three full days and nights and we haven't left the hotel room, discarded magazines and ripped pages litter the place but we are finally finished.

Jasper and Peter returned once and left again so we needlessly stretch as we stand and decide to go for a hunt and then find them. I hate that I have to say goodbye to them again already but the boys planned our trip back to the states while Ali and I worked on the wedding and after only one more day together it was time to say goodbye. We spent time in the woods, playing and running and sparring, then Ali and I went shopping for something to wear dancing that night. In the morning, it's cloudy so we all take a walk through London, people watching before it's time for them to catch a train back to France and Peter and I need to go to the airport. I'm nervous and excited and worried and happy all at once. As usual Peter is quiet, his hand on my back or arm around my waist lending his support and comfort as we head through security and board the plane.

"I love you." I sigh as we sit and wait for take off.

"For all eternity." He agrees easily, lifting his arm so I can snuggle against him while the steward comes over with offers of Champaign and blankets. We take the blanket for appearances and then tune the humans out and all my anxiety fades away so there is only Peter as I close my eyes, breathe in his scent and pretend to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

We're sitting on the plane, halfway across the ocean on the way to Florida when he produces a ring. We're sitting in first class because Peter doesn't like people in his personal space and so many humans packed together frustrate him. I'm leaning against him, pretending to sleep so the steward leaves us alone when I feel him lift my left hand from his chest. He doesn't say anything, just slips the ring on my finger and puts my hand back on his chest, covering it with his own and closing his eyes. I peak up at him and he looks like he could actually be sleeping. I want to look at the ring but his hand is holding mine and it feels like Jasper is with us pumping loads of peace out and I am to content just sitting with him to bother with moving so I just tilt my head to kiss his chest and then close my eyes again. Unlike humans, Peter and I can sit still without moving for hours so though we have to remind ourselves to shift a little we are perfectly content to be still during the long flight, without getting up to stretch or getting bored or anxious from not doing anything so long, we enjoy it, wrapped in our own sense of peace and contentment, sitting together.

Anxiety hits me when we get off the plane and I remember we are about to meet with my mother, my very human mother and her very human husband. I'm so worried I almost don't register when she comes running into view, with a slightly awkward gait, tugging Phil with her, that her belly is full and round.

She reaches us and pulls me into a hug and then pulls back, tears in her eyes, "I was going to tell you but email seemed like the wrong way and then when you called and gave your news I was so excited I just plain forgot." She gushes, blushing and happy as she rubs her full stomach.

"How far along are you." I reach my hand out in wonder, my fingertips just grazing her swollen tummy before I pull my hand back.

"Seven months." She grins at me, "It's a boy, what am I going to do with a boy?" She laughs, "What would I do with a girl for that matter, you were always so grown up, you practically took care of yourself and then me too."

I smile at her and shake my head, "You were a great mom, you'll be a great mom." I reassure her, because scatterbrained or not my butterfly of a mother had been a good mom, no one could have loved their daughter more than she had always loved me.

"Let's not talk about George, let's talk about you, my baby is getting married!"

"Geroge? You're naming him George?" I laugh at her, "You can't name my brother George mom."

She huffs and rolls her eyes, "Phil says that too but I like it." She rubs her belly, "He feels like a George, my little Georgie."

I laugh at her again and shake my head, "George Dywer?"

"Alexander George Dywer." Phil tells me, "Only Renee calls him George, he'll be an Alex."

"Alex." I nod grinning at him, "Alex is much better." My mother just rolls her eyes with a shake of her head and then they've turned their attention to Peter so I take his arm, "This is Peter Whitlock, Pete this is my mom Renee and her husband Phil."

"And soon to be baby George." He smiles at them and his response makes Renee laugh, I can tell she already likes him. Actually I'm surprised how likable my normally standoffish fiancé seems at the moment. His smile is warm and inviting, a little boyish even and I wonder if he's maybe a little nervous about meeting my mother. The thought makes me have to bite back a grin, big bad, doesn't care about what anyone thinks, Grim Reaper vampire, is nervous about meeting my human mother.

"It's so nice to meet you Peter. Bella hasn't told us much about you. You're related to Jasper right? I thought I remembered Bella telling me that when you all lived in Bar Harbor or was that another Peter?"

"Brothers." Peter nodded, "We were separated in the system and didn't find each other for a while but he came lookin and found me, asked me to come stay with him, get to know each other a while." Peter lied easily.

"Let me see the ring baby." Renee tugs my hand and waves at Phil, "You boys run and get the bags, ok?" He nods and kisses her temple before nodding to Peter and they walk off to the carosel where our bag should come out. I hold out my hand to Renee and for the first time since he slipped it on my finger, I really look at the ring. It's smooth white gold with small diamonds inlaid along the entire band, an eternity ring, for the promise of eternity.

Renee gasps, "Oh Bella, it's so beautiful."

"He has good taste." I choke out as venom coats my eyes. The ring is perfect, it's beautiful, delicate and elegant and understated, I know its expensive, too expensive but it's perfect and beautiful and I love that he chose it for me.

She notices my damp eyes and hugs me tightly, "I'd cry every time I saw it too." She teases lightly making me laugh.

I chuckle and nod, "I just love him so much."

"Oh baby, I'm so happy for you. Tell me everything, I mean I know how you met but how'd you get together and how did he propose, I want to know everything." I don't want to lie to her, I know I have to but it hurts that I do and I'm grateful for the small reprieve when Phil and Peter return with our bag.

We had consolidated into just one duffle like when we travelled in Mexico and South America so it was easy and they didn't take long waiting. Phil checks we are all set and we are off to the car pretty quickly, though Renee stops to use the ladies room and then for a pretzel on the way.

"Do you like baseball?" Phil asks Peter as they load the small SUV and talk is focused on sports for the drive while Renee eats her Pretzel and then an apple she digs out of her purse. I'm grateful not to return to the conversation with Renee, to not have to lie to her yet but I know I have to, only small lies, and I know the important parts are true so I try not to worry about it. Instead I focus on Peter and Phil chatting sports and on Renee munching away happily and how happy I am to see my loving, erratic mother again.

I'd forgotten about eating when we'd decided to come and knew I'd probably have to try at some point. Human food didn't smell bad to me, it just didn't smell appetizing either and I knew if I ate it, I'd have to throw it up so I was trying to think of all the excuses I could make to avoid meals with them over the week we were supposed to stay. I'd also have to think of ways to stay inside since this was Florida and even being almost October it would be sunny, I can't help but roll my eyes at myself, I really hadn't thought this thing through.

When we arrive at the little three bedroom house, Renee excitedly give me a tour, she's decorated everything herself and the furniture and color are as eclectic as she is. I'm careful to catalog everything in my memory, I have perfect recall and I want to always picture her here, to remember every detail about her and her home she loves so much.

The walls in the living room are moss green and the sofa is saffron orange with vibrant pink or lime green throw pillows, a giant wood chest is their coffee table and there are two brown leather chairs with more vibrant lime green throw pillows. There is a mirror shaped like a sun behind the couch and the entertainment system holds a giant flat screen and shelves mixed with movies and books and odd little figurines. The kitchen is through a little door and to the left of it is a dining room. The kitchen is in sea-foam green, the kitchen is all light wood and white, its clean and pretty. The dining room has a round dark wood table and every chair is different, one is apple green with diamonds in jade, hunter and forest, another is swirls of blue from the palest sky to the darkest navy, a third is cream with gold and pale yellow and white stripes and the fourth is lavender with circles of purpley midnight blue, violet and plum, the walls are white except for one that has geometric shapes in all the colors of the chairs.

"The kitchen is more Phil's." She tells me with a laugh, "That's why it's much calmer, he likes a clean space when he cooks and you know I can't cook."

Then she leads me up the stairs to the nursery, it's done in a soft buttery yellow and has blue curtains on the window, the ceiling is in the same soft sky blue as the curtains. The furniture is all crisp clean white and the little blanket on the bed is sky blue to match the ceiling and the curtains. It's clean and calm and relaxing and I know Phil decorated this room even before she says it but there is a touch of Renee along one wall where his name is painted along the top in highlighter color blue, green and orange, each letter has a thin outlined in black and is written in calligraphy. All around it are vibrantly colored birds, some perching on letters, others in flight.

Next to this room is hers and Phils and it is messy with an unmade bed and some clothes on a chair off to the side. The furniture is dark wood and the bed linen is indigo and electric blue that I think is the same color as the chair under the pile of clothes. The walls are a very dark navy blue and there are touches of indigo and electric blue every where and I think it's the perfect blend of crazy and ordered, just like the two of them. The bathroom is a good size, the walls are ingigo and the bath mat is electric blue and there are navy blue towels and an old clawfoot tub Renee tells me Phil put in special for her.

Next we move down to the hall bathroom, it's a bit more subdued with lilac walls and white everything else, beside it is the guest room. "It's your room Bella." She tells me, "It was always your room, ever since we moved out here when you were living with Charlie and I did it up just for you only you never really use it so we have it for company sometimes." I hug her tightly and smile as she opens the door. Shelves cover an entire wall and its littered with all the books and other little momentos I had from growing up and photos, from the time I was a child to when I stopped sending them after the change. The bed is wrought iron and the night stands are dark wood. There is a small flat screen tv on the wall over a dark wood dresser that matches the night stands and a small closet, where she's kept some of the clothes I had abandoned in Phoenix. The bedspread is crisp clean white and the walls are a rich warm dusky purple blue. It's very much me and even if she hadn't said before opening the door I'd have known Renee had done this room herself and she'd done it completely with me in mind.

I hugged her as venom stung my eyes. "It's perfect mom."

She hugs me back and I know its tight, I want to hug her tightly too but I'm afraid to hurt her so after a moment I pull back and we grin at each other.

"You look so beautiful baby." She tells me, "Different, so grown up and so happy."

"I am happy, very happy." I tell her as we leave the room and go downstairs to join Phil and Peter, who are now watching soccer on tv with beers and with movements to fast for my mom or Phil, he dumps a small amount into the potted plant beside him so it looks like he's had some out of the bottle. I hide a smile and remind myself we'll have to replace that when it no doubt dies.

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and put in new contacts, I hate the feel of them but the brown is close enough to my normal color that my other hasn't noticed and Peter's muddy brown are less shockingly noticeable than his vibrant red, actually as much as I hate the feel of my own, I hate the look of his, I miss his red eyes, they're just so… Peter.

It's easier than I expected to fool my mother, put in new contacts every three hours, don't let her feel my ice cold skin directly and avoid sunlight, thank weather gods and Alice Cullen, we are visiting at an unseasonably cold year and Florida is cloudy and raining most of the week. The one sunny day to dawn, Peter and I see the lightening of the clear and bright sky so we leave Renee a note and tell her we won't be back until late, leaving well before the sun is high enough in the sky to become a problem for us. We spend the day out in the swamp together and since I feel weird having hot vampire sex across the hall from my mother, I use the time to take advantage of my almost husband.

We can't get out of eating every meal though I do my best to make it look like we've eaten before she gets up or have picked at plates of something during the day, it's wasteful but has to be done. Dinner is another matter and we both have to suffer through three full meals over the week. It's awful. Terrible. Worse than anything I've had, and I tried alligator blood that week and rodent in South America. The rodent was slightly better than the alligator and I had no plans of trying anything else cold blooded, it actually made me gag. Phil was a good cook, everything smelled nice but I had no desire to eat it, the textures were coarse, it was all chewy, slimy or crunchy and tasted bad. Throwing it up later in the night was even worse and I felt miserable after. I also felt like Peter deserved a damn medal for doing this for me so I made sure to thank him in a way that left us both feeling better, you know after we washed down the remnants of our tossed cookies with blood.

I go over the details of the wedding with my mother so she feels included and take her opinion on a few of the choices making small adjustments or narrowing down a couple options Alice and I had been playing with; it's going to be small and elegant. She wants it here but we're having it in the wilds of Northern Scotland this winter and that means she'll have just given birth and won't be able to come. I promise photos and hug her and promise its ok, that I don't mind and then I lie and tell her it's just going to be Peter and I with Alice and Jasper, small and intimate, more like a dressy elopement. She seems thrilled that I am happy regardless and is so content and happy in her own life; I am grateful I was able to see her like this, that even if she can't see me marry him, she's met Peter, seen how happy he makes me and while she likes him for him, she loves him for how well he loves me.

I'm amazed when I lay my hand on her tummy and feel my half-brother moving around inside of her and venom coats my eyes as we hug goodbye, "I love you mom." I remind her. I know in my heart that this really is goodbye, that it has to be. My mother has another life now too, a good life and she and her new family don't belong in the world I now lived in. I'm grateful we both have this last memory, this glimpse into each others happily ever afters to hold onto for all our lives.

"I love you too baby and I want thousands of photos of the wedding. I mean it Bella, thousands."

I laugh and nod and hug her again, "I'll put Ali in charge, she'll take a photo of every minute from the time we wake up until Pete and I leave for our honeymoon."

"A trip around the world." She sighs and rubs her belly. "Send me post cards when you can." She reminds me again.

"I will mom. I promise."

Peter and I don't say anything as we check in at the airport and board the plane. He just holds my hand in his and once we are settled in our first class seats, he wraps an arm around my shoulders so I can settle against his chest, close my eyes and pretend I'm sleeping.

"I miss her." I tell him halfway into the flight.

"I know darlin, I'm sorry."

"Thank you for taking me to see her, now I'll always be able to picture her there, in her house with Phil and the baby. She has a good life, her own life and she'll be ok, without me, you know?" He doesn't respond, just tightens his hold around my shoulders to hug me while I ignore the venom coating my eyes in tears I can't cry because this was really goodbye.


	17. Chapter 17

Peter and I rented a truck in Seattle, my man had a thing about trucks, I don't think he liked to drive anything else, a fact I was perfectly ok with, since I like a good truck much better than some small speedy over priced city car. We could also pull it off into the wild without problems or inciting very much needless attention when I wanted to hunt. After picking up the spacious Ram, we stopped in a bad neighborhood for Peter to eat and along a stretch of woods just off the highway for me to grab something before heading to the house in Forks.

Charlie still hadn't sold the little white two story, the slightly battered for sale sign out front looked a little sad, actually though the house looked the same as in my foggy memories of it, it also seemed a little sad, sort of abandoned. Inside the furniture was all still there, it was a bit dusty but otherwise just like I remembered.

Peter and I let ourselves in with the key under the mat and changed our clothes and put in new contacts. I was grateful that Forks was as gray and dark outside as I had remembered, so, well fed, contacts in and clothing fresh, we headed out to the reservation to see Charlie.

It was a short drive out of Forks, along the lone road to the barely remembered house Charlie had moved into when he married Sue, only a block over from his best friend Billy Black. I sort of remembered him from my human life but he and his son were more distant than some of my other human memories, actually I couldn't remember Charlie's new wife all that well either, it was hard to picture them in my mind, just blurry images and impressions unlike Phil whose image had been almost as clear in my memories as Charlie himself. Renee had always been the clearest image in my head from my human days, probably because I had spent more time with her than anyone else.

I was distracted as we drove, having pushed the not quite there memories out of my head and concerns about seeing Charlie aside, I sat back to tease my husband to be, running my hand up his thigh and tickling the skin just above his jeans, under his tee shirt. Peter didn't need a lot of attention on the road, so he took to teasing me right back until he muttered a curse, yanked the wheel to the side and we went spinning out of control off the side of the road into a tree, avoiding the bear sized wolf that had leapt out of the woods and into the middle of the damn road.

I flew through the wind shield into the woods and Peter was out of the battered truck in the same instant, standing by me, growling and crouching as he faced the ginomous wolf and its very pissed off looking friends.

"Peter?" Fear was a new sensation for me in this life, not emotional fear like losing Peter but actual scared for my life, fear. It was primal and raw and the bitch in my head was growling but calm and I couldn't understand why she wasn't angry and violent and scared like the fuck ton rest of me was.

"Shifters." He bites out, "Why the fuck didn't the Major warn us there were shifters here."

"Shifters?" I question looking from him to the wolves. I know we are talking to fast for them to follow, only seconds have passed but another wolf has joined them and I register that maybe they were waiting for this black wolf and that was why the growling snapping jaws haven't lunged for us yet.

"We ain't come for trouble but if you start it, I can finish it." He warns them yanking his shirt from his body to reveal the scars I knew were frightening to most things that saw them. The ones that should have frightened me when I first woke up to Jasper or saw Peter but had never registered as more than a beautiful web of history and survival in my mind. Scars that I had traced lovingly or tasted thousands of times. He's crouching low and partly in front of me and I know he's partly guarding me but also trying to make them think I couldn't fight, that I hadn't been trained by two of the most bad ass soldiers to come out of the southern wars. I stood behind him, not leaning into a defensive crouch but laying a hand on his back as though needing the comfort, feeding into the image he was presenting, to use in our advantage if they decided to attack.

"Bella?" I know that voice. It pulls at the strings of my memory as a very large native man comes out of the woods.

I frown and tilt my head in question, trying to place him in my memory, "Yes?"

"Fuck." He hisses, shaking his head.

"I'm here to see Charlie... Swan," I clarify though he seems to know me, I can't fit him in my foggy brain, "He's my father and he married Sue Clearwater a few years ago."

He nods and licks his lips, "I know, I was there, I'm Jake. Do you not remember me?"

"Jake?" I frown and examine him more closely, the image I have for Jake is of a smaller boy, but this is a man. I nod, "You look, different."

"Yeah." He snorts, "So do you."

I glance from him to the wolves around us, "Please, we only came to see Charlie, I'm getting married, I wanted him to meet Peter, to know how happy I am, before I have to disappear from his life forever."

"Maybe you should have already disappeared." His voice is almost a growl and he shakes his head, I can see his body quivering and there is anger in his eyes, "How did this happen?" He waves at me, "We can make them pay Bella." He sighs and his shoulders slump as he shakes his head, "It was your choice though wasn't it." He curses and mutters about fucking leeches shaking his head before speaking up again, "Your father might live out here but you do have to abide by the treaty or we'll have to kill you." Peter growls at that and my hand on his back makes small circles to soothe him.

"Treaty? Is there an agreement with the Cullen's" I confirm about the treaty, why hadn't Jasper warned us they were here? He nods so I nod back, "I do follow their diet, I have since the beginning." I don't mention Peter or his diet. "Look, I just want to see Charlie, please, we don't want trouble. We don't know anything about the treaty but we wont hurt anyone here, I promise, I just… want to say goodbye."

The black wolf nods and gives a little growl and then seems to shiver and suddenly there is a very large native man, a very large naked, well endowed native man, standing in his place. He pulls on shorts while Peter growls at him and I thank the gods that vampires can't blush because I might love Peter but that man is beautiful.

"I'm Sam Uley."

"He's alpha." Jake fills in for me.

I nod and smile at Sam, "I'm Bella, this Peter."

Peter's attention is still on the wolves but he nods in greeting and has stood slightly from the crouch.

"We can extend the treaty to you while you're here, it means you don't bite anyone, other than that, you stay off our land. Break the treaty and we will attack."

"Charlie lives on the reservation." I tell him shaking my head, "We're staying out at his old house but he'll get suspicious if I don't go see him and there is enough about me to make him suspicious. Please, we won't hurt anyone, I promise, I just want to see him, spend a little time with him and then we'll be gone."

Sam shakes his head but is examining me closely, "Just you and a wolf stays with you. You don't cross the border without one of them and he doesn't come here at all." Peter growls at him and all the wolves growl in response, "That is the only concession I'll offer, this one time, for Charlie. Take it or leave it and get off our res or there will be trouble and no matter how many battle scars he has, I promise you we will be the last trouble you both see."

Peter growls and crouches as I hear a crashing in the woods. Two wolves come crashing through the trees and straight at him, he's braced for the attack, he looks perfectly calm but I know once he moves they won't stand a chance, not these two but there are so many of them and I don't know anything about shifters, about fighting them. Before they get to close though, the two wolves run straight into an invisible wall. I feel a small shockwave through my body and the bitch in my head is gloating, she's hissing and wants to fight and for the first time I realize the wall in my head isn't up but she's not taking over and I don't feel the need to fight with her about it. She's still calm and the rest of me is calm now as well. Peter lets out a laugh at the way they'd tumbled back but is looking around in confusion like the rest of them.

"Do you have a gift?" Sam demands, glaring at Peter.

"Sometimes I get a feelin about somethin, it's a knowin sort of feelin." Peter shrugs like it unimportant. "Wish it gave me a damn kownin sort of feelin about coming to this damn reservation." He grumbles looking at our damaged rental. "A warning from the Pixie would have been nice or at least heads up from the damn Major." He adds with a snort.

Sam's attention is on me now and I shrug but smirk, "Guess maybe I might have more than super control and muted blood lust after all."

"Muted blood lust?" Jake asks.

I roll my eyes, "Yeah not eating, kinda easy for me, unless you bleed a lot, then I might have to have a taste, though you boys kind of smell a little."

"A little?" Peter huffs looking at me like I've gone mad, "Fuckin mutts reek!"

"Nothing next to your stench leech." Jake growls at him.

"Are they ok?" I wave at the two wolves who were laying down glaring at us and growling from where they'd run into the wall around us.

Sam nods, "Fine." He sends them an unimpressed look, "I told you two to hang back in case there were more." One of them whines and the other looks defiant. "Puppies." Sam snorts under his breath.

Sam turns back to me as I speak, "It's just us. I swear." He gives us a nod and then shakes his head and sighs, "I must be crazy, but Leah and Seth will take you to see your father. Embry, Jake and Jared will take your friend to the edge of our territory, he can wait for you there or go back to Forks."

Peter isn't happy as I agree. I lean into his back and he turns to hold me in his arms, "It'll be ok Peterpire." I whisper.

"Thought I was done worryin about losin yeh when you weren't human no more." He sighs holding me tighter.

"You wont lose me, I'll just see Charlie and tell him you're unpacking and giving us time to catch up before meeting him and then we can invite him to dinner tomorrow, I'll cook for him."

He makes a face, "We have to eat? Can't we take him fishin or something instead?"

I make a face back and nod, "Good idea." He chuckles and hugs me tightly again, breathing me in. "Love you Peterpire."

"Eternally." He whispers back. I watch him walk through the woods with the wolves and the bitch in my head doesn't like him being away from us but she doesn't seem all that worried. I am a little and I hate the line of tension in his shoulders but there is nothing we can do now so I turn back to Sam. Most of the other wolves are gone, except for one who turns in a girl I sort of recognize.

"Hello Leah." I greet her as she yanks on a dress.

"Fucking leech, why am I not surprised by this?" She snorts stomping through the woods. Sam motions me after her so I follow along, we keep a fast human pace but it doesn't take long to cut through the woods and come out in the yard of the house I vaguely remember moving Charlie into. There is a wolf following us that must be Seth, he's weaving through the trees keeping a close eye on me, not turning into a human until we reach the backdoor of the house. Charlie's not home but Sue is and she doesn't seem pleased to see me. Come to think of it, now that I see her, I sort of remember her not liking me when I came for her and Charlie's wedding.

We don't say much but its clear she knows what I am and hates me. It doesn't bother me, I don't care what she thinks of me, as long as she's good to Charlie and he is happy. The silence is also easy for me, I can be still for hours and Peter isn't a talkative soul, no matter how much he's opened up to me in the last couple years, so I sat not bothering with the human pretense and stared unseeing out the window and waited, like a statue.

They were not so good with still or silent, Sue got up and continued preparation for supper and the two wolves shifted a bit before Leah sent me a glare and got up to help her mother. Seth just sat and stared at me, he'd shift in his seat and sigh or scratch an errant itch, finally he gave in and groaned, "So how'd it happen?"

"The usual way." I shrugged, "I was bitten, time stopped while I burned in hell for a good long while, then started again three days later and I woke as this, forever twenty minimal blood lusty, ubber control vamp chick who apparently has a secret defense wall thing."

"I mean who bit you and why?"

"Why does it matter who? It was done because I wanted it and that's all that matters."

"You really wanted this?" Jake demands storming into the kitchen shaking a little as I nod. "Fucking stupid." He hisses.

"It's my life Jake, I vaguely remember you, I have blurry human memories of all of you but I don't really remember any of you so your opinion doesn't matter. I don't care what you think because I'm happy but I do care about Charlie. I came so he could see I was happy, for him to meet the man I love and am going to marry and so that I can take one good, clear, happy memory of my father into my forever."

We sit in silence for a while longer, until I hear the cruiser pulling up outside. I go to the door to greet him and the way he smiles when he sees me fills my whole being with warmth. "Hi dad."


	18. Chapter 18

His smile seems to falter and then falls as he steps closer, "So it has happened, I thought, seeing you here." He looks around nervously and looks back at me, "You can't be here Bells, not like that."

I'm stunned as he hurries up the rest of the walk and takes my arm, "Is Sue inside? Did she see you? I don't know how Sam and the boys haven't been here yet but we need to get you gone."

"Sam knows. He's given her permission. This once." Jake tells him coming to the door, though he's standing as far back from me as he can and still see Charlie.

"Good, good." Charlie nods and smiles at me, "Let's get inside though ok." I nod a little numbly and follow them back into the kitchen. Leah still looks angry but Seth seems to be snorting back laughter as Charlie gives a small smile at Sue and apologizes. She just shakes her head and hands him a beer. "So, Bells." He sighs, "How… Why… Well damn it, I'm not to sure what to say here, I mean I sort of figured it was possible but you didn't turn up missing or dead and now I'm not really sure what to say."

"Charlie?" I'm not sure what exactly is going on, no, I know exactly what he's getting at, I just don't want to accept it.

"He knows you're a leech." Jake rolls his eyes at me.

"I sort of, maybe, kind of, had a melt down and shifted in the yard a while back." Seth shrugs. "Mom explained it all, about us I mean and then of course the Cullen's came into it and you were off living with the two that wouldn't just freaking leave when the others had the good sense to piss off."

I swallow needlessly and turn back to Charlie, venom stinging my eyes, "I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say to him.

"Are you happy?"

I give him a wobbly smile, "Very."

"Well then," He nods, "I know it maybe isn't right, since you've become that, uh, like you are, and Billy and I have certainly had a fair few arguments over it but being happy is all I ever wanted for you so if you are then that's that and I'm happy for you."

I swallow again and nod, more venom is filling my eyes and my chest is to tight, I know I'd be sobbing if I were still human. Charlie knows what I am, knows the choice I made and has accepted it, he is even happy for me and still loves me, even as something not quite human.

"I'm engaged." I tell him though I know he already knows.

"This man, um uh, vampire fellow, he's good to you?"

I nod and smile and sniffle though its not necessary because I don't produce snot, "Very good to me, he's wonderful and kind and loving, kinda quiet," I sort of chuckle, "Kind of like you, he always does things to make me feel loved and special." Charlie nods and I smile though the venom is still in my eyes, "He's here, not here, the wolves made him leave the reservation but he's in Forks, waiting to meet you."

"You and he like them Cullens? Eating on animals right?" Charlie asks.

I nod and then shake my head because I can't lie to him, Charlie knows what I am and I won't lie to him anymore, "I am," I confirm, "Since I woke to this life I've been a vegetarian, what we call a vegetarian, but I killed one man, in Montreal during my new born year." I admit this quietly, "There was a car accident, a drunk driver hit a young mother and her son on the highway outside the city. The man was still alive when we passed by, it was to much blood and I was too new. I slipped, the beast got out of her cage and I finished him off." Charlie just nods and I feel like crying again. "I'm sorry."

I am sobbing when Charlie reaches out and lays his hand over mine, "Well now Bells, if he killed them other two and the accident were that bad maybe he would have died anyways."

"That's what Jasper said." I agree with him.

"You try."

"I don't need to." I sort of sniffle and chuckle, "I woke up to this life with that part, the vampire part, sort of locked behind this wall in my head, she rattles it and tries to break it down sometimes but the only time she's gotten past me is that once, when I wasn't expecting it. I've been around blood since, it smells nice, but I can keep her locked up pretty easy, mostly I don't think about it."

He smiles at me as he nods, "Good, that's good. You'll be fine, you'll be just fine like this."

I smile back at him and that horrible night, that failure doesn't weigh on me as much anymore. I wonder if this is what Catholics feel going to confession. My father knows what I am, he knows what I did and he still loves me. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in his hand holding mine.

"Are you wearing contacts?" He asks, "Sam says vampires have red eyes or gold if they're on your special animal diet."

I nod, "They burn off after a couple hours from the venom." I tell him reaching up to pluck out the contacts so my golden eyes shine out at him. "The level of venom in my eyes though, they probably would have burned off quicker today." I admit in a small voice. "Is this ok? Or do you want me to put them back in?"

"No." He shakes his head, "I want to see you just like you are."

I smile at him and meet his eyes, "Black too." I tell him, "Our eyes go black with hunger, the darker the shade of our eyes the hungrier we are."

"Look pretty bright to me." He chuckles.

"I had a deer on the way in from the city." This seems to really amuse him as he chuckles loudly and settles back in his chair.

I see Jake leave out the back door as Charlie sips his beer, "So, tell me about your life then, all the stuff you left out in the few emails that came these last few years."

I smile at him and nod, "Well you know we lived in Bar Harbor and I came to visit you just after my birthday and for your wedding," I flick my eyes over to Sue and give her a small smile. She gives me a weak one back but her posture is still rigid.

"I didn't know about any of this then." He sighs. "Did you change then? Was that why you came?"

I shake my head, "Not right away, but it is why I came. I was just about to turn twenty and I knew what I wanted so I asked them, and we talked about it a little and I told them I needed to come home, to spend my birthday with you and Renee, to see you guys again before and then I did go travelling in Mexico. Peter was waiting for me in Seattle while we had a visit and we went to Vegas for a while to spend a little time together figuring out our relationship, it was a bit rocky, an adjustment, I was still insecure because of Edward and Peter had been hurt before too, even worse than I had, it was hard for him to open up. I guess Mexico was his way of doing that."

"I'd just gotten a post card from you there when Seth had his accident in the yard." He made it sound like Seth was a little kid who'd pooped his pants or puppy that had spoiled the rug because it was excited and it made me have to fight back a smile.

"I was still human." I sigh, "We went home, to Bar Harbor, to Jazz and Ali for Christmas and confirmed the plan for my change."

"When?"

"New Years. Peter and I were together, I didn't tell you when I was here because, well I guess I was afraid it wasn't serious, that he didn't love me and would just, leave, like Edward. So I didn't say anything but we were and after Mexico, I knew I loved him though I hadn't told him, actually we didn't say it until recently but I have loved him from the start and I loved him more for giving me the time and not pressuring me to make the choice or to stay human, it was always up to me. So we kissed goodbye to the old year, and my old life. Then Jasper bit me as the New Year rang in."

"Was it…"

"The change," I sighed, "They told me all about it but you can't comprehend what it really is no matter how much you know or try to prepare. The burning," I shudder at the memory still so clear in my mind, "It lasts for three days but time seems to stop during those days, so you're burning and burning and begging for death. It feels like centuries pass and there is nothing but pain. Then you wake up and you feel amazing and the burning, its such a clear memory but it feels far away and you just feel amazing, its like seeing the world for the first time. Everything is bright and new and beautiful, your mind is vast its thinking so many things all at the same time," I give him a wry smile, "It takes a while to get used to." Even now, I'm having this conversation with you but part of my mind is reliving those days and another part is with Peter, wondering where is, if he's ok and not stressing to much being apart with me in a position he considers very dangerous. Then there is another part of my mind cataloging everything in the room, every minute change of everyones expression or shift in position, Leah's blinked seventeen times just since I started expelling about the change but despite all this other noise in my head, all my focus is on you and I'll remember in perfect detail every expression you're making, every word that you've spoken and exactly how I feel at every moment I sit here."

He nods and looks away before looking down at our hands, still held on the table, "Did you do this for him?"

"No." I shake my head and squeeze his hand, waiting until he looks me in the eyes, I shake my head and repeat, "No. He wanted this but he never asked. Once, only once when we first got together, he said he wanted to bite me, that he'd never thirsted for my blood, just the opposite he wanted to make me like him because I was fragile and he was afraid something bad could happen to me. I think he told me he loved then, but the memory is far away and foggy, I don't think I believed him and we never talked about it again. Not until I decided and brought it up to them, I asked them, I asked for this, for me. Not for Pete, not because I was afraid they might hurt me one day or because they would have left me if I stayed human or to be beautiful and special like I thought they were. Jazz and Ali and Pete they made me feel those things as a human, I was never less to them and they were never going to abandon me but I was going to leave them, one day I would have died and I wanted to be with them, to be as much an equal part of them as I felt inside. I know what I gave up, Renee and the baby brother she'll give me, a chance at my own babies and grandbabies and you. I love you so much but I was meant for this life, to be a Whitlock, it's where I belong, with Peter and with our brother and sister. I miss you, I miss you and Renee so much but I'm where I belong, I'm who I was meant to be and I'm so happy, my life is so good and so full of love. I love you but I don't, I won't ever regret making this choice."

"Bells." He sighs.

"I love you and I miss you, you and Renee and I'm sorry, I am so sorry for hurting you. Maybe I should have gone missing, turned up dead, let you both mourn me but I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I tried, coming here for my birthday it should have been goodbye." I shake my head, "Those memories, they're so foggy, like they almost belong to someone else, and they do, they belong to another life. You and Renee, you both belong in a different than me now and I know I can't be part of that life. I've said my goodbye to Renee now and I'll hold that last memory of her there in Florida, happy with Phil and my baby brother who's on his way, I'll hold that image close to my heart forever. I know I have to say goodbye to you too and it hurts, it hurts so much but I'll have this perfect, clear image of you, here in this house, happy with Sue, and she'll take care of you and Leah will be the daughter you always deserved and Seth the son you never had and I'll keep that memory with me, in all of its perfect detail forever."

"It doesn't have to be goodbye." Charlie argues squeezing my hand, "Not with me. I know what you are, and it's ok, it's ok Bells. I'll take the house off the market and you can stay there when you visit. We'll make this work."

I smile at him and its hard not to curl up and let the sobs pushing through my body out, "I love you so much." I tell him even as I'm shaking my head, "I belong with Peter."

"It's ok." He argues, "You can be with him and just visit sometimes, at the Forks house, and then there wont be any trouble with the pack, it'll be ok. There's a treaty and we'll make it work."

"There's a treay for the Cullens." I tell him sadly. "Peter and I aren't Cullens."

"No, but you're a vegetarian. Sam let you come here Bella, onto the reservation, he and the elders will meet and they'll agree to extend the treaty to you. I know they will. Tell her Sue, you'll talk to them if they make a fuss and everyone will accept this, they'll agree that you can stay at my house in Forks as long as you stick to the Cullen treaty."

I'm already shaking my head, "Peter's not a vegetarian." I whisper.


	19. Chapter 19

The room is still and silent, everyone has frozen, "He's already fed and he doesn't need to as often as I do, the blood he drinks is more filling, keeps him stronger and sated longer. He won't feed while we're here, he wont need to but he's not a vegetarian Charlie. His eyes behind the contacts are vibrant, violently red and they always will be."

He's shaking his head in denial, his hand is clutching mine and I can see his knuckles are white with how hard his grip is, "No." His eyes are searching mine for answers and I know the condemnation in them isn't just for my mate, it's for me because in his eyes I am just as bad for loving him, for standing by the side of a killer and doing nothing to stop him from taking lives.

"He only kills bad people Charlie, sometimes the terminally ill but most always bad people. Rapists, drug dealers, cartel, mobsters, murderers." I bit my bottom lip because I hate the look in his eyes right now, "I know it doesn't really make it better for you, that a human life is a human life but we aren't human Charlie. We're polar bears and humans are seals and cows are fish, I eat the fish and he eats the seals but at the end of the day, we're both the same, predators who hunt down and feed on our prey. To us, it's just the cycle of life like eating a burger or steak is to you. I don't want to hurt people, to be a killer and I'm not but I don't judge Peter anymore than I judge the polar bear. The Cullen's and I, we're the freaks, the unnatural ones."

"Bella, I…"

I squeeze his hand so his eyes meet mine again, "It's ok Charlie, I understand." Venom is burning my eyes again, "I love you so much. I just needed this one last goodbye, to see you here, happy with your new family, so I can remember you like this forever and I wanted you to meet him, to give you that last of memory, to see me happy. I'm glad that's the memory Renee will always have because she can't ever know any of this. It's amazing to me that you know, that I didn't have to lie. So I get to see you here, to know you're ok and surrounded people who love you and you know the truth, that I'm ok, that I'm out in the world, happy and healthy and safe, that I am loved and will be with people who love me, forever." I lean forward and kiss his cheek before letting go of his hand and standing, "Goodbye Charlie. I love you."

"Bella, wait, I…" Charlie gets up and comes over to me, hugging my granite form, "You're my daughter. I've always loved you. I just want you to be happy."

"I am." I promise pulling back and forcing a smile for him

"Stay a little while?" He asks and I swallow down the lump in my throat as I nod. He goes back into the kitchen and takes another beer. "So I, um, last email you were in England?" The atmosphere is tense and a bit awkward but he's trying, no father could love his daughter more and for a moment I was sorry he'd gotten so little time as part of my life.

I smile more naturally at him as I nod, "Peter proposed as we were leaving France. We spent a few days in London, a day in Bath, I got to tour Jane Austen's house." I tell him about London and Bath, Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton, about the plays we saw and the tours we took.

"He likes all that stuff to?" He asks when I finish.

"Peter loves the theater, we both love dancing and some history, he doesn't much care for classic literature but he is fascinated by architecture so Bath was really good for both of us."

"What about the wedding?"

"It's going to be small, up in Northern Scotland, Alice says the land is rugged and beautiful up there with all of these ruins from thousands of years ago. We're still working on the exact location but there's lots of land up there for sale so I'm sure we'll find something perfect."

"To buy?"

I nod and chuckle, "Alice says we have to have a home where we first get married, she and Jasper have one where they were first married to so I guess it's a Whitlock tradition now, to keep the place special and in Jasper's words, so no idiot comes along and puts a Starbucks there."

He nods and chuckles with me, "I suppose its something to hang onto when the world starts changing around you." I don't realize how much he takes this to heart, the idea of holding onto a place that is important, that holds the most special of my memories while all the rest of the world changes. I don't realize how this one moment, this goodbye affects him until many years later, when a lawyer tracks us down through the lawyer Jasper always uses and I get the deed to our house. Charlie had taken it off the market, kept it and all his savings and life insurance went into a trust to keep the house up. I wouldn't know this for years but when I do I remember this moment in all its vivid detail and all the love I have for my father fills me, no amount of time or distance has lessened it. Now though, I don't know any of that. I just know he's sitting across from me, trying, because he loves me, no matter what I have become.

"Yes, yes it is." I agree quietly. It's the first we've alluded to my vampire status in the last couple hours.

"Tell us more about the wedding." Sue urges breaking the sorrow tinged silence and I flash her a grateful smile.

"Alice will be my maid of honor and Jasper is Peter's best man. We've found the most beautiful dress, it's a low v-neck in the front and back, the back v goes down to my waist and there's this cream almost Champaign satin sash around my waist that's a bow in the back, it's fitted down past my hips and then sort of flares our a little, like a trumpet. It has a bit of train and it's made of the most beautiful cream lace. The wedding itself will be really simple and elegant, we'll play music right out there in the wild and dance. I love to dance."

"Dr. Cullen going to give you away?" Charlie asks quietly.

"No." I give him a weak smile, "He's not my father."

We share a quiet moment and he smiles a little, "Guess that Jasper is sort of that now in a way." He chuckles.

I laugh and nod, "Yeah, its a bit incestuous if you think about it."

"How's that?" Seth is frowning and it makes me laugh a little more.

"He bit Pete too. A long time ago."

"So he's both of yours sire or maker or whatever?" Seth is laughing now and my dad is still chuckling while I nod.

"How old is he?" My dad asks.

"Twenty two." I tease a little.

"How long has he been twenty two?" My father presses and a conversation rises out of the mist that comprises most of my human life...

_"How old are you?" I had asked Edward once._

_"Seventeen."_

_"How long have you been seventeen?"_

_"A while_."

I'm not as vague as Edward when I answer Charlie, "He was changed in 1879 so around about a century and half, give or take a year."

Charlie seems stunned at that and silence falls.

"Will you have flowers?" Leah contributes. She's still glaring at me, standing in the doorway but I appreciate the effort she's making for Charlie. I understand why she doesn't like me, why Sue and she seemed to hate me on sight, because even as a human I had been on the other side of the supernatural divide. Sue was human but her loyalty was to the pack, I had been human but mine was always to vampires. I understood it, I respected it and I even loved them for the effort they, that all the pack, were making to give my father and I this last goodbye, to let me have this one look into his life here, deep in their territory.

I nod at Leah and try to keep my expression light and warm for Charlie, even as thoughts of goodbye and of the lines he and I now stood across, filled my mind. "Purple and white." I answer as the door bangs open and Jake appears again.

"I fixed the damage to your truck." He tells me taking a seat in the living room. "It's back in Forks now."

"Thank you." I smile at him but he just gives a curt nod and looks away from me to Sue.

"Something smells amazing Sue."

"Supper." She chuckles, "I made enough for you and to bring home to Billy, don't make that face Seth Clearwater, there's plenty."

I can't help but smile as they flow into their routine, I just stand back and watch.

"Oh, um, Bella." Charlie turns to me as they sit down.

I smile and sit at an empty place, "it's ok Charlie, eat, you have no idea how relieved I am not to have to pretend at this moment, I had to eat with Renee three times."

"You ate?" Seth asks piling his plate high. "Like food food?

I laugh and nod, "The smell isn't bad it just doesn't make me want to eat any of it. The textures and taste of food," I wrinkle my nose in memory, "The bringing it back up later is even worse."

Seth makes a face and grossed out sound making me chuckle as I sit back to watch them. This is what I want, a memory of Charlie, here with the people he loves, happy and cared for.

Charlie tells me about the station and a few of the deputies, he tells me about fishing and then about after he found out about the wolves from Seth and how things were with the pack and life out here on the reservation. Charlie is happy. I know he still misses me and my photos grace the mantle of the fire place with Seth and Leah but he's happy, Charlie is as much where he belongs in his life out here as I am with Peter. It's bitter sweet in a way because I'm an outsider in the image, I don't belong in his life.

I already miss him like I do my mother but it's also better and worse than with Renee because she didn't belong in this world, I had to let her go but Charlie, he's on the edges of this world and I still have to let him go because his life is with the shifters and mine is with vampires and while the pack tolerates the Cullen's we are natural enemies. My father and I have found our happiness on opposite sides of a natural divide in this world and the best thing we could do for each other, the hardest thing, is to love each other enough to let go.

Sam comes by after dinner and they put a game on in the living room, I stand back and watch my father while Seth and Jake clean the kitchen and then join the others. I'm perfectly still as I take in the scene and I know its freaking the wolves out a little but Charlie doesn't notice, he watches the game, makes a few comments to the others and smiles over at me.

It's late and the game has changed to some movie or another and Charlie is dosing in his chair so I finally move, going over to him and kissing his forehead. His eyes open and I can see tears in them, he's not ready for goodbye yet either.

"Tell me about him." Charlie whispers. I know he's tired, I know its time but I nod and sit back down, I can't make myself leave yet.

"He doesn't remember his last name, Jasper was closer with his family I guess because he remembers his more so Peter has always used his name." I sigh, I won't tell him everything but I will give him a glimpse so maybe he can understand the man I love, to know him, though we both understand that this is goodbye and they will never meet. To tell his story though, is to tell part of Jasper's. "It was different back then, at least it was in the south. That's where he's from, both of them. At the time the south was ruled by vampires who built armies to control territory and gain feeding grounds. I was constant war after war, nothing but blood and death. Jasper was a soldier, in the civil war, he was by changed Maria, complete evil bitch, and she used Jasper, with his military mind and his gift for manipulating emotions to build up and control a new born army." I'm not sure he knows a lot about it so I explain, "we're stronger and faster for the first year because of the human blood still in our veins after the first year, the new borns were killed off, they weren't as useful. It was over a decade later they came across Peter and Jasper changed him. Peter was useful, he was a Texas Ranger in life and had a strategic mind. From the start he wasn't as rabid as the other new borns and his own gift told him he should stay close Jazz, so he did and they worked well together, slowly they became friends and Jasper convinced Maria he would be useful to them even after the first year. So decades and decades of war and death surround them and all they have is the bitch Maria and each other, they've become brothers. After a century Peter escapes Maria's clutches and finds there is more to the world as a vampire than coven's building armies and constantly at war for feeding grounds. It's been five years and Peter isn't sure Jasper won't kill him for deserting Maria's army but he goes back for his brother. He does that." I smile sadly at my father, "Loves so much that his loyalty to them out weighs his own self preservation." Charlie nods so I continue, "Jazz doesn't want to hurt his brother, he's tired of the killing and he doesn't just give others emotions he wants them to feel, he feels everything and a century of war and hate and death, killing humans and vampires alike, feeling all their emotions, it's eating at his soul. It's worse in the five years Peter has been gone, so Jasper goes with him and they spend a long time trying to adjust. Peter saw how bad the depression was for Jasper and that it was worse after feeding, after taking another life, and thought it might help Jazz, if it weren't a good person. That's how his diet came about, I think it helped Peter, which is why he still follows it but" I shake my head, "not Jasper. He feels Peter's love and sorrow and desire to make it better but it's hard for both of them to be with each other so they parted ways. That's when Jazz found Ali and the Cullen's, well I guess it was about a year later but" I shrug, "He found that path and it helped. Jasper has killed a few people since, accidents like when I fed from the man in Montreal." I explain and I am going to leave it out but I don't, "I cut myself at my eighteenth birthday and he feels all the Cullen's blood lust, he lunges for me and that's the excuse Edward uses to leave me, to take the family away. Alice sees how much it hurts me, how broken I am and she doesn't leave. She loves me, like Peter going back for Jasper, you just don't abandon family, not ever."

"So they stay here because you want them to, you love them and they love you." Charlie whispers, mostly to himself.

I nod, "You know that part of the story, you know that when we move to Bar Harbor they bring Pete. He's been alone a long time at that point, over fifty years. He's visited the Cullen's but he doesn't belong so he doesn't stay. I think he was a bit lost. Alice decides that he needs them as much as I do, because he's not doing well, he's been alone too long. I don't ever want him to be alone again. I won't ever let him be alone again." I bite my lip as I look at my father, "Peter's lived a century in hell and half a century alone. The only person he trusts, who hasn't hurt him or left him, is Jasper, so he has a hard time trusting anyone, letting them get close to him. It took us a long to get where we are and I know we maybe still have a ways to go but nobody could love me better than he does, than he always will."

Charlie nods again and swallows, "He's good to you then?"

I smile as my mind races through every memory of Peter, "Very."

He nods again and shifts in his seat, "He'll take care of you." It's more of a comment to himself than a question for me but I answer anyways.

"For all eternity, he'll love me and protect me and do everything possible to make sure I am happy." I meet his eyes, "You don't have to worry about me anymore Charlie," I shake my head as I continue, "I will never get sick or be hurt and I will never be alone. Life will always have its ups and downs, but it will always be beautiful and I will always be ok, because even when life is at it's most difficult, I will always have Peter, will always be loved." I don't want to leave, don't want to say goodbye, it's time though so I whisper, "I love you dad."

I'm already out of the house and running but I hear his quiet, "I love you always Bella."

I'm not running fast, well to fast for a human but slow for me as I wind through the woods towards Forks. I stop when I feel the wolves pull back and turn, there are a couple wolves but Sam and Jake are still human.

"Please take care of him." I whisper.

"We will." Sam nods.

"Thank you." Jake calls out before I can leave, I turn back to him in confusion, "You could have made this hard for him, for all of us but he needed this goodbye."

I nod, the lump is back in my throat and the venom stings my eyes, I force a wry smile though I think it comes out a little bitter, "Don't worry, I won't come back to see him, just… just take care of him, not just protect him but…"

"As long as he lives." Jake promises with a nod.

"Thank you." I whisper the words and disappear, running at full speed.

Peter is waiting for me when I get to the house and I run straight into his arms, letting loose the great heaving sobs trying to choke me. He just holds me, rubbing my back for a long time and then leads me inside. He doesn't question me as I put our few loose things back into the duffle and go out to the truck, my brain registered the fact that in the few hours Jake had left me to talk with Charlie, he'd done an amazing job on the damage and it looked almost new but it was a passing observation and my brain spent no more time processing it than a human's would the color of a house they walked past. I tossed our bag in the back and climbed in, curling into as tight a ball as I could, my feet resting on the center consol and my body curved against the door. Peter climbed into the drivers seat and started the truck, his hand reaching out to rest on my ankle as he drove.

After a few hours I told him everything that had happened. He didn't ask, didn't break the silence at all, just sat back and waited, driving us away and giving me comfort the only way he could, with his quiet support and his large hand holding my ankle.

**I googled dresses as I tried to picture Bella in one. This is the one I chose, just google... ****_roman love . net wedding dress 2275 _****(it comes up as backless embroidered simple sash ivory lace wedding dresses bridal gown)**

**Also, I thought you might like to see the Peter that is in my head, just google... ****_Chris Hemsworth of Gods and Men out . com _****(obviously you'll all know who he is but I saw that specific photo and my head just went… PETER!)**

**Ok, hope you are all still liking the story :-) more to come very soon!**


	20. Chapter 20

Peter and I drive all the way to some small town in Idaho called Kingston before we stop for anything more than gas and after my explanation of what had happened with the shifters and my father, we hadn't said anything either. So, I'm surprised when he pulls up to an inn and gets out to get us a room but I follow behind him without saying anything.

We enter the room and Peter sets down our duffle taking my hand and leading me over to the bed he just lays down and pulls me into his arms. I look up at his face but his eyes are closed and he looks like he's sleeping.

"Peter?" I finally question.

"Sh." He tells me, pulling me back into his arms and holding me tightly.

I snuggle into his chest, I'm not about to argue with him if he wants to just lay here, it feels nice to be in his arms and I wish I could sleep as I close my eyes and breathe him in.

Time moves around us for a little while and then, with no apparent reason, as if on some cue that I couldn't see or hear, like pulling off the road in this town, he just starts to talk.

"When my uncle died and the bank took his ranch, I went round to find work on other places. I liked the quiet and the hard work comes with raising horses. The area is all small ranches though, not many taking on a new hand, so I was hungry and ragged looking and had nothing. I'd gone a long ways from where my uncle's ranch was and come upon a small place, kinda ragged looking too and while some of the horses looked healthy and strong some of them looked more ragged and tired than I did. Well I walk up and there was a woman at the house, older but sort of hard. She says she ain't hiring but she can see how hungry I was and when I went to leave she said if I'd fix up a few things she'd feed me a decent meal. While I ate she explained that she had about three men working for her and one boy, said that they brought in wild horses and ones that had been abused or abandoned as well as bred them. She tells me she's a widow, lost her husband and one son in the war, the other is one of the hands, he'd only been a boy when his father and brother died, maybe a handful of years older'n me. Then there's a freed slave and his son and then the older hand is a veterinarian his wife is a tiny native woman who helps in the main house. It's an odd blend, all livin together in the farm house, especially for them days but they're all good folk. Lady says she'd like to help me and there is always work, she just can't afford to hire anyone for pay but if I don't cause any trouble and I earn my keep I can stay on a while. I get on well with her son, he's a quiet sort, but has trouble with some of the horses that were abused. He can train the wild ones, breaks them fast and well but you don't come to a wounded animal the same way, they're already broken so coming at them hard like that doesn't help. I come at them slower, quieter and the lady is real happy I have a good hand with them. The boy works as a stable hand, mucking stalls and baling hay, his daddy has an old injury from the war or maybe from a former master, if I ever knew for sure how I don't recall it now, he can't do hard labor but he helps with anything he can help with and I think maybe he and the widow had something but its just an impression, I don't really remember that either. It's a good time, the memories are sort of foggy and I don't even recall their names but when I went off to find my own way with the Rangers it was just after she'd died of fever, hard old woman I couldn't believe she wouldn't make it when she got sick but life's like that sometimes. Her son offered me to stay on, said he'd need me but it didn't feel right there without her. It was just over a year I'd known her but she was the closest to a mother I'd known. I had a plan after the funeral and I thought she'd be proud of it. I was goin teh be a Ranger and then I'd get a little ranch of my own, find a wife and maybe raise some babies. I parted on good terms with the others and there were a few letters I think, I think I maybe went back to help when I had the time away. Then came the day I met Jasper. I was ridin scout with another though I don't recall what or who we were lookin for. We only found Maria. Rode through some canyons and came across a massacre, fire's piled high with noxious purple smoke and right there amid them were Maria, she was beautiful and terrifying laughing among the carnage. It were only her and the bloody bodies and the strange fires, then her eyes found mine and she grinned. "

I shudder and he pauses tightening his arms as though to remind me that he was alive, he's here holding me now and he's ok.

"It weren't more than a moment that passed, my horse was going crazy and my heart was ready to beat out of its chest and then I'm on the ground, calm's fillin me and it's the first I see my brother as he bites me. I'm not calm and sane like you when I wake up, but I watch and pay attention and I have this feelin, about the Major, like I should stick to him, learn from him, so I do and when he's around, my head's a bit clearer, then there's a bad battle and we lose a lot of new borns. I listen to the damn feelin and I speak up. I think the Major might kill me for it but he looks thoughtful and then asks me a question and listens and he responds with what he thinks and I think it will work. It's almost a year over at that point, but I don't know what's coming besides more battles, more blood and territory to be defended or claimed. I still get the feelin I need to stay near the Major, to be useful and one day I think I've pissed him off because he sends me away from his side to look at one of the towns nearby for potential to turn but we've already been through there. When I come back the ranks have been culled and I'm the only one left. The Major doesn't say anything to me except to give an order. We're moving to another bunker. Maria is being challenged to the west and we need new soldiers to expand the ranks and replace the ones lost. The Major keeps me with him after that and we keep discussin plans, it becomes my job to babysit the new borns and help the Major train them. I'm a good fighter and have a strong mind so it's not long before the Major is referring to me as his Captain and soon after I earn the name Grim Reaper. It's a lot of years of darkness and blood and death but every once in a while, there is a moment of calm, a brief breath of air where I close my eyes and I remember the woman who'd once been kind to me. Charlotte reminds me of her when she comes, the old woman was kind of hard but sweet at the same time, she was a small woman with a steel backbone. Char is so small and gentle, she's not a fighter but her will is strong, she's a survivior, that's the only reason she's with us, she wasn't meant to survive the attack, wasn't meant to be changed because she's not a warrior but she survived. I admire that about her and I don't know it then but that's why I love her. It wasn't for a while after Charlotte left me I realized that I'd fallen in love with this sweet and gentle soul because she was a survivor, because she reminded me of that woman and I hate that I don't remember who she was. I have no name for her but I'm glad she never saw what I became, glad I got to say goodbye to her when I was still a good man."

He stops talking and we lay in quiet for a while, I'm not even breathing anymore, I'd stopped when he started to talk and now we lay perfectly still, holding each other on the bed.

"You are a good man." I finally whisper.

"I was a good man." He corrects, "Like I was a good Ranger and then I was a good soldier, then a loner nomad just this side of broken." I shake my head in disagreement and he chuckles, "Ask the Pixie darlin, I was drownin on my own, it's why she dragged me home with her to live in Bar Harbor. Then I met you and spent too much time fightin my own damn self and too much time worryin about losin yeh or lovin yeh too much. Now you're mine, or yeh will be soon enough and fer the very first time in more'n a century of existence, I can see the life I used to want in my reach, or at least a version of it, my own land and a wife to share it with. Things I ain't let myself think about let alone want since I woke in this life. "

"Peter." I sigh clutching his shirt tighter and pulling my body that half millimeter closer as I kiss his chest, over his silent heart.

"Since she died, that kind woman who took me in, I guess I've been running, searching for somethin, anythin that made me feel like I mattered, that I was on this earth for a reason. In a century and a half on this earth, only her and the Major ever cared much if I lived or died, who'd even risk themselves over me. They made me part of their family but I was always searchin, reackon I was searchin fer you."

"Pete."

"Thing is darlin, yer maybe the strongest person I've ever come across. Saying goodbye like you did to yer momma, that was hard but it's somethin every child has to do at some point, say goodbye to their parent and live their own life, one day they have to let them go as they pass on and that day will come for you as well, it will be equally hard no matter how many years there are between then and now, how long you wont have seen her, it will still be to soon and hurt to much."

I swallow thickly and nod because I know one day she'll die, humans died, I could only hope it was long into the future and she got to enjoy the beautiful life with her husband and son until she was old and gray.

Peter give me a moment before speaking again, "Every child goes through that to some degree though, even me, she wasn't my momma but I had to say goodbye to that kind woman and it hurt and then I said goodbye to her son, to the little family she had made me part of, it was time fer me to go and find my own way in life. Supposing it were a bit backward fer me but still both goodbyes just the same. It's what you just done fer yer father that's the bravest and strongest thing I ever seen."

"Saying goodbye?"

"Jasper and I stood for just one moment in time, across a divide but there were never hate in our hearts for each other. There were stories similar from the civil war, brothers who went to war for opposite sides, they both died hatin each other and it's a tragic thing. I went back fer Jasper, and maybe he'd have killed me, like maybe them shifters would have killed you but you went back fer your daddy. You and yer daddy are on opposite sides of a divide as sure as the one in that war but there ain't nothin but love in yer hearts."

"It was still goodbye."

"Yes." He agrees gently. "I'm sorry fer that darlin. Accepting its time teh say goodbye to someone we love is hard. People are apt to hold on long after they should. If it were Jasper, I don't think I'd be able to do what you done. Even on opposite sides, even if it's what is better fer him, fer both of us, I don't think I'd be strong enough or brave enough to say goodbye. I'd let the whole rest of the world, ceptin you, suffer, to hold onto any fragment of my brother in my life."

"It hurts so much." I whisper to him.

"I know darlin. It's cause yeh love him and yeh didn't get near enough time, there ain't never enough time when goodbye comes."

"He knows what I am, I could have that small connection, we could make it work for a while, but wouldn't that be worse? Harder for him? His daughter a vampire and his wife, all of his friends, everything else he cares about, her natural enemy? I chose this, I chose to be something that would separate us forever and I'm happy, I was meant to be a vampire, meant to love you but I chose to not be his daughter anymore."

"You don't ever abandon people yeh love but sometimes yeh have to love 'em enough to let 'em go. Ali and Jasper would have let you stay human, would have let you go if it were yer choice, they love yeh enough too, no matter how it would've hurt 'em. When yeh was human, I knew if I let myself love yeh, I'd have teh love yeh like that too, guess it's why I was so damn scared about yer humanity, cause yeh never mentioned turnin and I thought yeh wouldn't. Wasn't sure I could let yeh go, I wouldn't be able teh let the Major go. I'm still not sure I'd be able to let yeh go, not unless it were what yeh wanted. You and yer daddy let each other go, because yeh love each other and because it's what's best fer both of yeh, you're both where you are meant to be, who you were meant to be and with people that love yeh. You are still his daughter, you'll always be his daughter Bella. You an he are on opposite sides of a divide, but there ain't never goin ta be anythin but love between yeh. It's the most beautiful thing I ever seen and it make yeh the bravest and strongest person I ever had the pleasure of knowin."

I snuggle into him and we let silence wrap around us again, let time move around us for a while and I do feel better. I love Charlie, I love both my parents, goodbye had been hard but it was the right thing and both of them would be ok, they would be happy and they knew I would be too.


	21. Chapter 21

Peter and I were still lying on the bed at the inn, in Kingston when our peaceful quiet was interrupted by a very familiar scent. We were barely off the bed and going to the door to investigate when the knob rattled and the lock snapped, the door swinging open to reveal a black eyed Jasper.

"Major?" Peter snaps, not in anger but in question, he's waiting for bad news or an order not an explanation.

"Ali." Jasper calls softly and its only an instant before she's bouncing past him, into the room and I'm wrapped in a hug so tight I think she might be trying to break me.

"What?" I manage to ask, completely bewildered as Alice let's me go and hugs Peter before stepping back and glaring at us.

"You scared the crap out of me!" She hisses. "Don't ever disappear like that again!"

"Disappear?" Peter looks as bewildered as I feel.

"Ali you knew we were going to see my parents. Kingston is a bit off plan maybe but…"

Jasper is already shaking his head, "From her vision." He explains turning to push the door closed before moving inside he claps Peter on the shoulder and moves to hug me almost as tight as Ali had and he wrinkles his nose as he pulls away, looking at me with a frown, "I thought I could smell shifter from the hall, why the hell do you reek of them?" He turns to Peter then, "Was there trouble? Why the hell didn't you call? Fuck Captain, Ali starts freaking out because you two disappear and for hours she can't see anything. We get on a damn jet and she's gettin a migraine she's concentratin so hard and can't get nothin till we land in Seattle and then all she gets is some damn Welcome to Kingston Idaho sign." He's growling now but I can see he's standing closer to Peter than usual, worried affections is seeping out his pores as though we are hiding out here from an army that might show up any second to massacre us.

Peter snorts, "Well damn, don't suppose Pixie went blind right about the time we hit Forks?"

"Yes." She nods with a frown, "I was searching your immediate futures when you left to see Renee and checking in a few times but everything was going so well and then I saw your flight and arrival at the house in Forks, then when I went to check again to see how the meeting with Bella's father would go it was completely blank. I thought you hadn't decided when to go or were undecided if maybe you should go or give it some time but you never made a decision. I searched in the future and could still see the wedding but I couldn't find either of you at all, it was frustrating and scary." She shivers and takes my hand.

"Well damn." Peter sighs, "Guess that explains why the hell yeh didn't warn us we'd be runnin into some shifters."

"What happened?" Jasper demands, only slightly calmer now.

"Didn't know there were shifters under your nose in Forks?" Peter smirks at him, "Getting a bit lax there major, maybe a little slow."

Jasper growls at him but its playful as he shoves Peter. "We never crossed paths with any. Carlisle said there used to be some on the reservation, they had some old treaty and wouldn't go onto the reservation though we never came across any when we lived there so he didn't think there were any wolves there anymore but he'd given his word a long time before so we held to the treaty."

"Well they're there and we didn't know about the treaty." Peter shrugs, "Could have gone bad but it didn't." Then he frowns, "Think maybe Bells has a gift we didn't know about before though."

"How's that?" Jasper has relaxed more and is more curious than worried.

"Two young wolves charged me, right into some invisible wall." Peter chuckles.

Jasper looks thoughtful and then frowns at me, "I have no idea." I tell him with a shrug. "The wall in my head was down but the bitch wasn't taking over, she was calm whereas the rest of me was scared shitless. It was like her wall had moved outside us." I shrug again, "No clue how or why it happened or hasn't happened before."

"We trained you to fight but you've never been afraid of us, not even when you first opened your eyes and saw me." Jasper is still amazed by that, "This was the first time you've ever felt fear darlin, must be what brought it out."

"We can ask Eleazar." Alice offers like its unimportant and I suppose it is, we don't live in the world Jasper and Peter came into, every moment of every day isn't about fighting and survival, life and death. "So," she turns to me, "I can't see around shifters, that's interesting." The way she says it makes me chuckle, the wrinkling of her nose in distaste even more so. "Did it go ok? You weren't there very long, did the shifters even let you see Charlie?"

"Yes, I saw Charlie, he knows about the wolves and about me." My smile falters and Peter moves to take my hand. "We said goodbye." I whisper.

Alice and Jasper both look sad as they move a little closer so we're all sharing a bubble and its as much their presence near me as Jasper's gift that fills me with peace, calm and love.

After a moment we move away from each other again.

"So, yeh ran here from Seattle?" Peter breaks the silence.

Jasper shrugged, "It was faster and we thought there could be trouble. Night anyways so safe enough."

"Good to know yeh'd come runnin."

I grin at their version of telling each other they love each other and Alice chuckles and shakes her head before meeting my eyes, "Don't disappear again ok?"

"I won't." I give her a sad smile because its another reminder I won't see my father again. She takes my hand and squeezes it.

"I saw you decide against any humans you used to be friends with to so that saves on having to worry about catering or plates and cutlery, drinks and cake." She grins, "Plus you know, we don't have to be so careful and pretend to be human."

I laugh and shake my head, "Nope, just us vampire folk."

"Well then, we should get to work on the guest list. I saw the changes you made with your mom and I love them, it's going to be so perfect. Now it's just the guest list. Peter's nomad friends will be a bit iffy to track down but once he decides who he wants to invite I can take care of that. The only other is Eleazar and his coven, like I said they are our cousins and if you do invite them I suppose we can deal with your new gift repell shifter thingy at the same time. You and Kate are going to be good friends eventually but maybe the others can wait for an introduction."

"So now you don't want them to come?" I frown at her in question and look to Peter, "I thought you got on pretty well with them."

"He does, even better than the Cullen's, except Rosalie, he's friendly with her." Alice pipes up.

I make a face at her because Rosalie is the only one who never cared for me at all, then I sigh, "Ok, so why take them off the invite list?"

"You want Emmett and he will want Rosalie, you both want us, obviously and he'll want to invite Garrett and maybe a couple other nomads but you don't really have anyone and neither of you is all that close with the Denali's or the other Cullen's for that matter so you can have a smaller wedding, won't you like that better?" She asks innocently.

"Alice?"

"I'd reckon the Major told her I screwed one of the sisters a while back and she's worried you'll take it bad." Peter offers sitting back on the bed, leaning against the headboard and crossing his ankles.

He looks sexy as hell and it's been a while but the distraction doesn't work as I push the thought away and frown at him, "Who?"

Peter shrugs, "Does it matter?"

"Maybe."

"Tanya, a decade before that Irena but I'm not sure the Major knows about that as he weren't with me."

"Are you inviting Charlotte?"

"She's a Whitlock." He shrugs. "She'll come with her coven so Chloe will be there too so what's it matter if I slept with Tanya and Irena or anyone else, besides it's not them on the alter with me."

I don't know what to say to him so I just gape at him a moment, "Fine. Fine." I raise my hands at him, "Any other skankpire whore you want to invite to _our_ wedding? Maria maybe?"

Damn frustrating man just stares at me frowning. While I spin on my heal and storm from the room. Alice follows me and I can hear Jasper chuckle darkly and tell Peter, "You ain't seein her sweet parts for a while now Captain."

"Bella, wait, I'm sorry."

"Why?" I ask her as we run into the woods, "You didn't screw every slutty vampire you came across and now want to extend them an invitation to our damn wedding! You don't see me inviting Keith." I snort, "I should, that's exactly what I should do, see how he likes it and Edward, he's definitely invited, if Charlotte is coming so is Edward! See how he feels about _that!_"

Alice sighs, shaking her head, "Maybe you should just elope. The four of us can go buy a nice plot of land and hold a beautiful little ceremony. Just think about it Bella, it will be elegant and simple, no fuss, just you and Peter, pledging your love forever with Jazz and I as witnesses.

"No. I love my dress and the flowers and to dance."

"You can still have the dress and flowers and of course we'll dance."

"No." I shake my head again, "I'm not, not having my wedding because the groom was a man whore."

She shook her head and chuckled, "A dozen or so women in a century and a half is not a man whore Bella, there are human men that have slept with that many women in a quarter of a deade."

"Do you know who they all are?"

"Maria, obviously and Charlotte of course. Irena, Tanya, Chloe and a nomad I don't know named Rebecca, then there were a few one night stands with humans, even if he cared to get their names he never saw them again. I know of seven in the decades since we've met but even if his number is say two dozen, it's less than some human men who've lived a third of his lifetime and it's not like other women don't have the same issue. Jasper wasn't a monk before he met me. Emmett had a wife when he was human and Carlisle, well he lived more than one century before Esme came along and I guarantee it wasn't celibate."

"I know." I groan. "I was hard on him, it's just…" I groan again instead of finding words to finish the sentence.

"It's just the crazy possessive vampire part of you can't stand the idea."

"Exactly."

"How does she feel about rubbing it in all their slutty still single faces, except for Charlotte but Peter, way sexier than Zach and before you were a human curiousity, really losing Peter to you, she wont like that either."

I laugh because she's right, the vindictive bitch in me does like that idea. "Ok, OK, I was hard on him. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it."

"I know and I mean it Bella, we can go, just the four of us and it will be just as special. I want you to have a real wedding but there doesn't need to be anyone there for it to be real."

"I do want to share it with people we love and the party will be fun, getting to meet my new extended family, all the people you and Jasper love, all the people who were part of his life before I came along, you know, all of them except the raving phsychotic bitch."

"Charlotte or Maria?" She teases making me laugh.

"Charlotte's ok, I guess, for a heartbreaking skakpire I mean."

She laughs with me and nods. "Let's get something to eat and then head back before Jasper gets anxious. I kind of freaked him out when I couldn't see you or Peter and the possessive bitch in him is just a tiny bit over protective of you and I."

I laugh with her, "Such a drama queen." We giggle as we follow the scent of a herd.

Back in the hotel the boys are waiting, like they haven't moved. Jasper perched on the edge of the dresser, arms and ankles crossed, Peter sitting on the bed in a similar position, leaning up against the head board with arms and ankles crossed.

Jasper just quirks an eyebrow at us and Ali and I giggle at him because its exactly the expression we expected.

"You two seem to be in a better mood." He offers with a crooked smile.

"I'm a bit moody and over emotional, must be vampire pms." I shrug.

He shakes his head fighting back a chuckle, "Weddin jitters maybe."

"Only because the groom has slept with half the guest list." I'm exaggerating but they can tell by the tone of my voice that I'm also teasing.

"So we are having a guest list?" Alice confirms with me.

"Yes." I nod, "I think Peterpire will want his little friends there and you and Jasper are our family so your family is our extended family and these things are supposed to be celebrated with friends and family."

"Just Garrett." Peter shrugs.

"Bill?" Jasper asks, "Issac? Mary?"

Peter rolls his eyes and grumbles, "Them too."

Alice laughs and claps, "I just saw something interesting."

"What?" I ask, though we are all looking at her expectantly.

"Nothing." She sings.

"Alice!" I protest.

Jasper just chuckles and shrugs, "You know she ain't going to tell us, darlin."

"Fine." I grumble.

"Come on let's all just get out of here." Peter jumps up and lifts me, "If I ain't getting to ravish her now there ain't no point stayin longer."

I laugh and wrap my arms around his neck, "Later cowboy."

"Forgiven for screwin the cousins then?" He asks, giving me a devilishly charming smile, one that would melt the knickers off a nun.

"Maybe." I tease him a little as he sets me down beside the truck. "Depends how pretty they are."

"Next to you? Utter hags." He offers.

"Really?"

"No, but that's my story and I'm stickin to it." He laughs moving to the other side of the truck.


	22. Chapter 22

**Sorry for the absence. I got lasik so took a night off editing for my eyes. My dog passed that night and I just couldn't edit this chapter. Doing my best to get back to the story but won't promise to be able to update as often as I was before. I have a lot going on the next couple weeks and just not in the right mindset to write.**

Time begins to pass quickly as Ali and I plan my prefect wedding. Jasper and Peter are put in charge of location, finding and buying the perfect spot and I miss them like crazy but Alice and I are busy with our own plans. I'm surprised when the Cullen's want to help but gladly accept when Carlisle and Esme offer to track down a few of Peter's nomad friends. Carlisle is friendly with or has at least met all of them over the years. Rosalie takes charge of finding my perfect dress from the photo Ali and I have chosen and Emmett is taking care of what he describes as a "Fucktastic mix of awesomest tunes" to play through the ceremony and reception.

Before I realize it I'm standing on an small island, that's part of a three island archipelago in the Shetland Islands of Northern Scotland, called the Out Skerries and there is nothing at all on the island but a single automated lighthouse. This island is called, Grunay and it is now officially owned by the Whitlock family, along with Bruray and Housay. Those islands house a population of somewhere around a hundred people between them. Jasper says they've bought it for less than some people pay for a house but I'm still floored. It is wild and beautiful though and I love it.

All around the island boats are docked and the tiny space is quickly filled with other vampires, there are nineteen of us gathered and Alice brings me around to meet everyone, I say hello to the Cullen's and thank them for their help, I even give Edward a nod, which is all I can manage as I'm still angry with him for what he'd said about Peter. Then it's the Denali's, Eleazar and his mate Carmen, Tanya, Irena and Kate.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Bella. Jasper tells me you had a few questions for me regarding your gift. I'm happy to share my knowledge with you when there is a free moment to talk."

"Thank you Eleazar. It's lovely to meet you."

"It is lovely to meet you as well." He offers kissing my hand. "This is my mate Carmen."

We smile at each other as Tanya moves over, "My coven would welcome a visit with you and Peter if there isn't time enough here."

"Thank you." I offer trying to keep my smile in place. She's even more beautiful than Rosalie, so beautiful it almost hurts to look at her and she's been with Peter.

I feel a wave of concerned affection and boost of confidence as Jasper steps over to Alice and I, "Tanya." He greets her with a nod. "Peter will be here any moment Bella, you and Alice should go into the light house and get ready."

"Alright." I smile at him and turn back the to beautiful blond, "It was nice to meet you, I'm sure there will be more time to talk later."

"Of course." She smiles at me, "Then you can also meet my sisters," She waves at the other two beautiful blond women with her, "Irena and Kate. I believe you've already met Irena's mate Laurent." I smile at them, the striking man doesn't seem familiar.

"I'm sorry, I don't recall."

"You were human and it was a brief encounter." His voice is low, his tone cultured and I imagine he was changed in some distant past of French courtiers.

"Well I look forward to getting to know you, all of you." I smile politely at them as Alice leads me into the lighthouse to get ready. Rosalie is there waiting with my dress and to help fix my hair while Alice adds a bit of makeup to my eyes and lips and fusses with the bouquet.

"Garrett and Peter are here." Esme knocks gently.

"It's time!" Alice squeals and ushers Rosalie out before turning back to me for one last hug. "You look perfect, everything is going to be perfect."

I grin at her and take a nervous breath. I can't shake the feeling that something is going to happen to ruin this and I want to run out to Peter and rush the ceremony so nothing can take the moment. I don't, instead I take a deep breath and step back out into the wind. There are two groups of vampires standing apart to make a small aisle and at the front is, well I have no idea who he is but he's gorgeous as sin. He's a bit scruffy like Peter with longish straight dark hair and a little more than Pete's five o'clock shadow but not a beard, his jaw is sharp but his cheekbones, oh holy hell his cheek bones. My attention is pulled away from him when Peter takes a step forward so I can see him past Emmett and Jasper.

I'm Yours by Jason Mraz starts playing from a jambone speaker and I skip, literally skip like Alice does when she's excited, all the way down the aisle to him. I feel like my grin is going to crack my face but it's ok because his smile is just as wide and my heart aches with how beautiful he is, how much I love him.

"Peterpire." I breathe as I reach him, flinging myself into his arms.

He catches me up and spins me a little before setting me back on my feet and kissing me. I can hear a few chuckles but all I see is him, "Ready for this?"

I just grin at him and nod, "When you are."

Together we turn to the man, grinning at us, he winks and then composes himself and looks out at everyone else, "I'm Garrett and you're all here today to see my best friend promise his eternal love to this lovely little vampire. There is only one man who knows and loves the bastard more than I do so since Jasper thinks the little lady is good for Pete, I guess I'm here to marry them." I grin at him and there are a few chuckles from the others, Pete is pretending to glare but there is a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "So unless one of you fuckers is dumb enough to challenge the Captain here and contest the marriage let's get on with it shall we? Right, good. So, please repeat after me, I take you as my partner from this day forward until forever ends."

"I take you as my partner, from this day forward, until forever ends." Peter I reply in tandem and as I reach for his hand he takes mine, squeezing it tightly.

"Peter." Garrett nods.

"Bella, darlin, I love you unconditionally and without hesitation. I choose you as my mate for all eternity and I vow here and now to never walk away from you, to never let go of the love we share. Because of you, I smile, I laugh and I dare to dream again. I love the human you used to be, the vampire you are and I will love the person you become in all the centuries we face together. I look forward with joy and wonder to spending my forever with you."

I swallow and nod as Garrett motions to me, "Bella?"

"Pete, I choose you as my mate for all eternity and I vow to fiercely love you in all your forms, now and forever. I will never leave you or doubt the enduring strength of our love. I vow to help you love life, to hold you with tenderness and to have the patience that love demands, to speak when words are needed and to share the silence when they are not, to agree to disagree on feeding from humans, and to live within the warmth of your heart and always call it home."

"These vows shared today, in front of family and friends, spoken to nature and each other are now etched in your souls. So as a symbol to each other and the world of this everlasting commitment and love, please now exchange your rings."

"I give you this ring as a physical reminder of my promise to you, as it encircles your finger let it always remind you of my devotion for as a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you, I choose you to be my eternal partner, my wife this day and forevermore." The ring he slips on is identical to the engagement ring, they slide together fitting perfectly, two eternities, mine and his, joined forever.

There is venom coating my eyes and I have to swallow to speak, "I give you this ring as a physical reminder of my promise to you, as it encircles your finger let it always remind you of my devotion for as a ring has no end, neither shall my love for you, I choose you to be my eternal partner, my husband this day and forevermore." His is a simple wide band of white gold but on it I've engraved _Until Forever Ends._ Peter can read the writing as I slip it on and he sends me a smile that melts me to my toes.

"Peter and Bella, by the power vested in me, by the great and mighty internet, and by the Whitlock law of these here islands, I pronounce you husband and wife, mated for all eternity. You may now kiss the shit out of each other." I laugh and bounce up into Peter's arms wrapping my arms around his neck, he holds me tightly, arms wrapped around my waist and we do exactly as Garrett suggests, kissing until Emmett is hooting and there are a few snickers from the crowd.

We pull apart and Garrett speaks up again, "If you'll all move back, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock would please share their first dance." The music changes to I Don't Know Much But I know I Love You by Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville.

Jasper cuts in on the next song and then Ali, which amuses a few of the guests. Garrett claims me next and I hug him, "Thank you, that was, perfect."

"My pleasure Mrs. Whitlock. I look forward to getting to know the woman that's made the fucker smile like that."

I grin at the name but offer, "Bella."

"Garrett." He winks and spins me away into Peter's arms.

I laugh and lean on my tip toes to kiss him, "Jealous side coming out?" I tease.

"Mine." He growls and kisses me.

"Forever." I agree sighing happily.

He takes me around to meet the rest of our guests.

There are three other nomads here, the same ones Jasper had named when we talked about inviting people. There was Mary, her skin is milk chocolate but her mass of curly dark hair has shades of red in its highlights that frame her vibrant ruby eyes. Bill is English and a bit older in appearance, his frame is thin and wiry and he's a bit dour looking. Isaac, is, well he's adorable with freckles and moles, he looks about seventeen and has a wide happy grin.

I like all three of them, Mary has a dry humor and tells me stories of Peter and her running into each other in New Orleans and spending a few months together there. I wondered if they'd slept together but Mary cleared that up herself.

"Pete and I would go out, it was Mardi Gras time when we were there and everything was crazy, we'd dance and feed and then I met her, the bitch Camilla. I should have stayed with Peter, but she was beautiful." Mary shrugs, "Pete warned me about the south but I was never good at listening so it's not long before I followed her off to New Mexico where she went to college. Damn humans are fickle bitches and Camilla's moved on to some sorority whore not long after and I figure its time to get my sweet butt gone but I've been there a couple months and someones taken notice so I'm in a shit load of trouble when in comes Pete after me and the vampire near shits himself running off to his master and Pete gets me out before fucker comes back with an army, sweet man." She pats his arm sending him a grin, "If I were attracted to men even the slightest I'd have been tempted to claim him as my own a long time ago." She chuckles, "Universe must have got it right though since I've never seen him happy like this." I grin back at her and nod before leaning into him.

I don't expect Bill to tell me much but he goes into a recounting of afternoons spent on table tennis matches and discussions on books, I think he's maybe read everything ever written.

The bitch in my head is as happy as I am and only rears her ugly head when Tanya touches Peter's arm, insecurity floods me and with it her white hot rage. I struggle to keep the wall in my head up as I excuse myself from Bill and move over to them but Charlotte intercepts me with congratulations.

"Thanks." I'm almost in control of the bitch, it helps that Tanya has taken her hand off my mate and Jasper is flooding me with calm.

"You make a beautiful vampire." She smiles at me and I appreciate that she's trying, just like she had when she found me out on the beach when I was human and avoiding my own home. I remember it, remember being surprised she had sought me out that way.

"Thank you Charlotte."

"You make him very happy Bella, its good to see him so happy, he deserves it."

"How's Zach?"

She laughs and tilts her head, drawing my attention to her mate, he's dancing with Cassandra, "He'd love you if you were a double headed shrew with snakes for hair." At my frown she laughs again, "Vampires are a bit possessive. He likes Peter being mated."

"Right." I nod with a chuckle, "I'm a little familiar with the possessive part."

"Over Peter or from him? I used to hate how possessive he was, Zach only ever got that way with Peter and he tried so hard to suppress it."

"Peter and I are both pretty possessive I guess, it doesn't seem to bother him, sometimes I even think he likes it."

Charlotte smiles and nods, "I won't monopolize you, I just wanted to say how happy I was for you and Peter, we're sisters in a way."

"Thank you Charlotte."

Peter's not with Tanya anymore but I see Garrett with Kate, he looks enraptured by her and I grin.

"Exciting isn't it?" Ali asks from a little behind me, "You and Peter pledging your love and giving them a chance to meet in the process."

"That's what you saw, isn't it?"

Alice laughs, "Maybe."

"Oh, what?" I frown still watching Garrett and Kate, he seems shocked and intrigued and oddly excited despite an expression of mild pain.

"Kate can run this electrical current over her skin so if you touch her she shocks you. I'm guessing he asked to test it out." Alice laughs as Garrett shakes off the feeling and grins at Kate, then holds his hand out and spins her. As they dance I move my eyes around the room again and Alice flits off to talk to Irena.

"Bella?"

I turn to see Edward near us, "Yes?"

"Can I have this dance." I frown at him but shrug, why not?

Peter really doesn't like this though and it's only a few seconds before he's pulling me away from Edward and into his own arms.

"Don't ever touch her." Peter hisses.

"We're only dancing." Edward defends.

Before he can say anything else Alice is there and pushing Edward away, "Dance with me brother. Jasper is dancing with Mary and I love this song."

When the dance ends Chloe comes and asks Peter for the next, I answer for him with a resounding "No."

She glares at me but Pete just shrugs and wraps an arm around my waist, "Did you meet everyone?"

I nod, "I saw you talking with Tanya."

"Yup, Major warned me there were some very rip her face off and maybe cut me off even though its our wedding day vibes from you." He laughs. "So I'll avoid Chloe and Tanya and you stay away from Fuckward and nobody has to put pieces of themselves back together again. I do have to dance with Char once, I promised and she's family."

"So you can dance with Char but I can't dance with Garrett?"

"You did dance with Garrett. I didn't dismember him, I didn't even tell him to get his hands off you, hell I was positively polite, even let him have half a dance."

"Fine, go dance with Char." I roll my eyes. "I'm going to talk to Irena and Laurent, I haven't had a chance yet and I still can't find him in any of my human memories so I'd like to hear how he knows me."

"James." Peter shrugs.

"The nomad that tried to kill me?" I ask frowning and subconsciously rubbing my wrist, with its half moon scar.

"He was part of James' coven. Left when James decided to cross so many vampires to go after one human."

"How do you know?"

"Jasper, Irena and Laurent." He shrugs. "You should still go talk to them." He kisses my temple and is off so I make my way over to Irena and Laurent. I'm curious about his yellow eyes, had he always been a vegetarian or did he change for Irena?

Tanya comes over while I'm talking with them and grudgingly I like her, so long as she keeps her talons off my mate we can even be friends, the bitch in my head concedes. They tell me about Denali and Tanya again asks me to visit, Eleazar can help me learn about and even master my gift.

Kate and Garrett come over and I like her right away, maybe it's because Alice has already told me we'd be friends but it doesn't matter, she's kind and funny and has never slept with Pete.

I wander some more, stopping to talk with people and to dance with Emmett. As the sun begins to set I find Isaac. We've been introduced but it's the first I can stop and talk to him alone.

Isaac is full of energy, he doesn't bounce like Alice but his hands, arms, most of his body moves as he talks, very quickly, jumping around from one idea to another and back again so it's like we're holding two or three conversations at once.

"I was for sure a dead man, you know, and then in comes this crazy scary bad ass dude and he tears everyone up and then bites me. I guess he's never turned anyone else but he bites me and I live, I think maybe it's just to spite the fuckers, you know like killing them wasn't enough or something." I'm surprised by this bit of rambling, and want to spend more time with him because Peter had turned this energetic adorable man child.

The music changes again as night falls and everyone, even dour looking Bill, is dancing. We don't need the lights from the boats, just the music from Emmett's jawbone speaker as night falls and complete darkness surrounds us. Isaac asks me to dance and is adorably spastic in his movements and we start making up ridiculous moves together. Peter comes over and I think maybe his jealous side might be showing like it had with Garrett but he just grins and joins us making Isaac laugh louder.

It's the perfect night, I dance with everyone, talk with everyone and thoroughly enjoy every perfect moment. Alice insists on my throwing the bouquet and it's not just for single girls as Alice says vampires can have more than one wedding. I just laugh and agree so I turn around and toss it in Kate's direction. My aim is perfect of course and Alice and I are both grinning and chuckling like crazy people as we all congratulate her. Peter has caught on and makes sure my garter is aimed right at Garrett. Both of them look a bit amused by us and self-conscious when they peak at each other.

Then, with the sky just starting to brighten, we board our little white speedboat with its purple and white ribbons and Just Married sign and head off to celebrate in private.

**Bella's vows are adapted from the movie The Vow.**

**Peter's vows are adapted from googling different wedding vows.**


End file.
